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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26572234">Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/particolored_socks/pseuds/particolored_socks'>particolored_socks</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dæmons [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Leverage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Complete, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Multi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 11:06:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>60,012</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26572234</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/particolored_socks/pseuds/particolored_socks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A group of Gyptians, complete with armored bear and Texan aeronaut, decimate the General Oblation Board's main station in the North. Lord Asriel opens a hole in the sky, Mrs. Coulter goes rogue, and that dangerous pair is never seen again. But what happens to the Gobblers? Well, for the full answer, you'll have to ask Ford and his team.</p>
<p>"Okay, let's go steal the Magisterium."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer, Minor or Background Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dæmons [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932685</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>83</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Mostly canon compliant with S1 of His Dark Materials and S3 of Leverage. Enormous spoilers for both series. Complete.</p>
<p>Kudos &amp; comments make my day - or come say hello on tumblr at particolored-socks.</p>
<p>Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. Boston.</b>
</p><p>The Italian has a snake dæmon, but Nate and Aoife are too far away to see properly what kind of snake.</p><p>The nuances matter, they've learned. The hard way. Maggie's Tom, a garter snake, is sociable and gentle. But Ian Blackpoole's Catherine is a pit viper, and for all the dismissive "<em>oh she wouldn't hurt a fly</em>"s and snide "<em>you know you're more likely to be bit by a spider than a snake</em>"s, it turns out that when you've got a predator of a dæmon, you've got a predator of a human, too.</p><p>Aoife is an orb weaver. She made sure to help Nate spin enough of a net to trap Blackpoole in.</p><p>Bite that, Ian.</p><p>The Italian moves into the light, sits at the bar, and the overhead light shines on a narrow bullet head attached to the mailed body of her dæmon, who is coiled around her neck like the most expensive jewelry.</p><p>An asp. Interesting.</p><p>"I would prefer wine," says the Italian, and Nate ignores her.</p><p>"Be careful," whispers Aoife from her spot on his collar as he pours two glasses. "Be clever."</p><p>"Aren't we always?" Nate murmurs back -- and then they're off.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Four Years Ago. London.</b>
</p><p>Maggie moves to London, because why the hell not.</p><p>Jim is there, if nothing else. He might have been a reminder of Nate, if things were different; but as it is, Jim and Nate were barely ever friends, and anyway, Jim Sterling is different enough from her ex-husband that Maggie is kind of actually looking forward to seeing him.</p><p>She's still doing art evaluations. It gives her something to do with her life, and even if she's spending more time around the Magisterium these days, at least she's never bored.</p><p>Today she's at the Arctic Institute in London, working with the curator to identify some Muscovite iconography. They stop for lunch, and because Søren is a colleague if not a friend, they do so together at the expensive café on the third floor of the museum.</p><p>Besides the waitstaff and Maggie herself, there's only one other woman in the room. She's middling height from what Maggie can tell, wearing expensive clothes, with dark shining hair and a golden monkey dæmon.</p><p>Tom curls tighter around her wrist at the sight.</p><p>"What's wrong?" Maggie asks him in an undertone when they sit. She doesn't want to interrupt Søren explaining the menu, but she does want to know what's got Tom all tied up like this.</p><p>"Something about them seems -- off. Wrong somehow," Tom whispers to her. His tongue flickers out, tastes the air; through his senses, Maggie can feel it too: a wrongness in the room, an uneasiness, with the woman and the monkey dæmon at its epicenter.</p><p>She's learned to trust his senses. Someone feels wrong like that, you don't stick around to find out why.</p><p>"... with lingonberries, it is actually very good," Søren is finishing saying.</p><p>"That does sound good," says Maggie, and smiles. "I think I'll try that, then."</p><p>Lunch goes pretty uneventfully other than one moment when Søren catches her looking.</p><p>"Marisa Coulter," he says, and his Svedish accented voice sounds … also off somehow. She can't put her thumb on why yet. "She is the head of the General Oblation Board for the Magisterium. She spends much of her time in the North, near Svalbard."</p><p>That woman's Magisterium? No wonder everyone is afraid of her.</p><p>"I've never been to Svalbard," says Maggie. A safer topic: Søren smiles and dives into it, explaining the nuances of armored bear politics. She follows along, and doesn't look at Coulter for the rest of the hour.</p><p>Coulter leaves before Maggie and Søren do. Maggie feels her look prickling on the back of her neck. Tom loops his way up to her shoulder, and his eyes meet those of the golden monkey.</p><p>The monkey blinks first.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Six Years Ago. San Lorenzo.</b>
</p><p>"It's in the service of a greater good."</p><p>"A little vague," Damien says.</p><p>Most people would have been nervous fifteen minutes ago. This woman smiles, somehow still appearing unruffled. If she <em> is </em> nervous, he approves of the skill she has in hiding it. "Details would only complicate things."</p><p>"I prefer to know them. As they say, the devil's in the details."</p><p>She makes a little <em> hm </em> of a laugh. "I wouldn't have pegged you for quoting little folk sayings."</p><p>"No, I generally don't," he agrees. "But they're starting to rub off on me." Among other things. "Regardless, I need more information than just 'for the greater good.' As an investor, I like to know what I'm putting my money in, and what the rate of interest will be -- and as a supplier, I like to know how my products and services will be used."</p><p>"Always the businessman," she says, still smiling. "Very well." She pulls a packet out of her purse and hands it to him, but her hand lingers as he takes it.</p><p>"You're not going to try seducing me, are you?" He opens the packet and reads through the papers inside, Marcelle on his shoulder keeping an eye on the woman for him. "I hope not. Unlike some people, the only way I can be bought is with money."</p><p>"No politics or power for you, then?"</p><p>"Politics and power <em> is </em> money," he says. This time, her laugh is the bright peal of a bell.</p><p>He doesn't trust her, but he does like her.</p><p>"I suppose you're right," she says merrily. "It's a pity you prefer the shadows, Mr. Moreau. But I can't complain about the results."</p><p>He'll go over the papers again later, but for now he can't find a reason not to say yes. "How soon do you need the shipments?"</p><p>"At the end of next month. My associates will make contact in Belgrade and take over transport from there. Half payment now, half upon receipt."</p><p>"Naturally." He folds the papers again and slips them back into the packet. "As it happens, I have a specialist on hand who is perfectly suited for the job."</p><p>"Excellent. I look forward to doing business with you, Mr. Moreau." She nods to him and then turns on her heels to walk away, her dæmon keeping pace at her side.</p><p>Damien keeps the packet in one hand, lifts the other to stroke Marcelle's head while he watches the woman leave. Marcelle tastes the air, then his hand, then the air again.</p><p>"This could be a steady job," she says.</p><p>"It could," Damien answers. "But that depends on her," and he nods toward their newest client.</p><p>"Don't tell him all the details."</p><p>He grins at his dæmon then, a sharp-toothed grin. "Now, why in the world would I ever do that?"</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Eight Years Ago. Outside Dallas.</b>
</p><p>"You sure you don't want to come with us?" Hester asks. "There's room for more."</p><p>"Are you kiddin'?" Sarah laughs. "With you and Lee and the armored bear, add us and we'd barely get off the ground. Nah, we'll stay down here. Better footing."</p><p>Hester's long ears droop, but she takes the soft no for what it is. Beside her, Lee offers Eliot a rueful smile.</p><p>"This is our port town. You ever come back 'round here, just look us up," he says. "We're always happy to help."</p><p>"I 'preciate it, Lee, I do," says Eliot. "But I got places to be, things to do. Like goin' home."</p><p>He doesn't mention that he left home on purpose, that it was more of an escape than anything else. But he doesn't have to; Lee already knows, and won't insult him by pretending otherwise.</p><p>"Your sister ain't married yet, is she?"</p><p>He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, Lee, I'll give her your card. 'Ex-army aeronaut-for-hire and troublemaker, have bear, will travel.' Jane'll be allll over you."</p><p>"I <em> should </em> put that on my card."</p><p>"You do that."</p><p>Hester and Sarah give each other one last go-over, grooming each other's ears. The men give each other a hug and a back slap, and then they part.</p><p>"Are we going yet, Lee?" rumbles Iorek from the balloon basket.</p><p>"In a minute!"</p><p>"Go on, stop cheatin' on him with me," says Eliot, smiling. "Get."</p><p>"Seriously though," Lee says, and his brown eyes do go serious, Hester at his heels going still to match. "Life once you're outta the army is weird. Normal folk don't get it. If you need a place to crash, I mean it, don't hesitate to call me. Wherever you are. Just send up a signal, I'll come."</p><p>Eliot's heart squeezes. Sarah rubs her head against his leg, and he reaches down to bury his hand in her fur. "Will do."</p><p>"Alright." With that, Lee and Hester swing up into the basket and start prepping to leave. Eliot and Sarah back up enough to give them room, and watch as they take off; watch as the balloon becomes nothing but a brown speck in the sky.</p><p>"We'll be alright," says Eliot into the silence.</p><p>"Yeah," says Sarah. "We'll be fine."</p><p>Neither of them says a word about how the last letter from Jane had said, <em> Dad's store went under. We've picked up and moved to OKC. DON'T come after us</em>.</p><p>They'll be alright. They'll find something to do.</p><p>It'll be fine.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning for accidental misgendering of Parker's dæmon from Archie's perspective within the prose describing the day he and Parker first meet. If you want to avoid it, skip the part in the "Twelve Years Ago" section beginning with "Let us go!" and ending with "... Fine."</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. Boston.</b>
</p>
<p>Both Alec and Lucille can tell that something is off about Eliot and Sarah, but they can't tell what.</p>
<p>Sarah has never been restless the way that Lucille is. Alec keeps a modified Rubix cube in his pocket, with textures that correspond to each color so she can handle it better in her paws, specifically so that she can fidget when she needs to; but Sarah is just -- still. She sits, and she watches, and sometimes her ears will flick towards a sound, but that's it. They'd found it weird when they first met, but different strokes for different folks, and after two years, neither Alec nor Lucille are about to start judging Eliot and Sarah for who and how they are.</p>
<p>When Nate mentions Damien Moreau, Eliot draws a breath but stays quiet. Sarah, on the other hand …</p>
<p>Sarah's ears practically flatten, and her claws flex, making the tiniest <em> click-click-click </em> on the wooden floor.</p>
<p>"Hey," Lucille says, her high voice soft and gentle so as not to spook Sarah further. "You okay?"</p>
<p>Immediately her claws retract again. Her ears come back up more slowly. Lucille ducks her head, trying to catch eye contact, but Sarah's green eyes don't meet hers.</p>
<p>It's all Alec can do to pay attention to the rest of the conversation.</p>
<p>"I don't think they're okay, Alec," Lucille says on the way home. She's curled up in the passenger seat of the van, working the Rubix cube over and over. "Sarah's pupils were like, tiny little slits. She's <em> scared</em>."</p>
<p>"Well, it kinda makes sense," Alec says. He turns on the right turn signal and waits for the light, drums his fingers on the steering wheel. "This Moreau guy is like, an arms dealer or something. This is way above our normal level."</p>
<p>"But Eliot used to do, you know. Hinky stuff," says Lucille. Her teeth click together a moment; she's thinking. "Wouldn't arms dealing just be a normal thing that he's come across?"</p>
<p>"Lucille, girl, I know what you're gonna ask and the answer is no." The light turns green, and he turns right, maybe a little too sharply. "We don't go digging into the crew's past. We know all we need to know, and that's enough."</p>
<p>But he can feel her staring at him, and when they pull into the apartment parking lot, Alec turns off the van but doesn't get out just yet.</p>
<p>"... I don't want to press him," he says at last. "Sarah's a lynx, right? So she's basically just a big cat. Which makes Eliot a cat. Which means we gotta let him come to us, baby. We gotta be patient."</p>
<p>"I ..." Lucille huffs and spins the Rubix cube one last time, then presses the little button to open the glove box and stuffs it inside. "Okay. I get it. I do. But they're scared, Alec, I wanna help them."</p>
<p>"So do I, baby girl," Alec sighs. He opens his arms and she climbs into them, her otter fur warm and soft against his skin, and she tucks her little arms around his neck. "So do I."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>One Year Ago. Boston.</b>
</p>
<p>Why would someone like Dalton Rand exist, when there are actual witches in the world who can actually do what he claims to do?</p>
<p>There are hacks and charlatans in the world. Alec knows that. But damn, he wishes he didn't have this kind of proof.</p>
<p>They're setting up now so that Tara and Martin can set the hook on this son of a bitch. Parker and Charlie are out getting ready for the coffee switch; Nate and Aoife are grabbing the car they'll use for the scare. Alec and Lucille are in the van, orange soda and gummy frogs at the ready. Eliot will be towing Rand's car -- but that isn't for a little while yet, so for now he and Sarah are hanging out in the van as well.</p>
<p>"Can't wait to bury this shithead," Eliot says.</p>
<p>Alec looks over at him. Eliot is more open now than he was when they first met, a little more relaxed, but the man was cranked all the way up to eleven when this whole thing started. His resting rate is still probably around a seven or eight. Right now? Eleven would be a conservative estimate.</p>
<p>It's not that Alec doesn't feel the same way, because he does. The anger that crackled through him yesterday and made Lucille so upset neither of them could sleep, it's still here, making his shoulders hurt, making Lucille even more restless. He'd said that Rand should be shot, and he still means it.</p>
<p>And it isn't that he feels possessive about Parker, because he doesn't. Parker belongs to herself, plain and simple. It's more that --</p>
<p>Well.</p>
<p>It's just nice to know that someone else feels the same way about Parker.</p>
<p>"We're gonna bury him so deep he'll be shaking hands with dinosaur fossils," Lucille says, earnestly, from her perch next to Alec's ordinator.</p>
<p>Sarah huffs sharply through her nose and then reaches up, sets her fluffy paws on the edge of the desk next to Lucille. If Lucille leaned forward only an inch, her nose would touch her fur.</p>
<p>"Promise?" Sarah says.</p>
<p>"Yeah. Promise."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Two Years Ago. Los Angeles.</b>
</p>
<p>Charlie doesn't like new people.</p>
<p>Neither of them does -- or, well, if they're gonna be pedantic about it, of course neither of them does because they're the same person. Charlie <em> is </em> Parker.</p>
<p>They picked those names together. Maybe because of a restaurant that does this thing called a horseshoe, maybe not, but no one will ever know the truth, and that's just how they like it.</p>
<p>Charlie doesn't talk much either. It keeps an ace up their sleeve. You never know when the split second distraction of "wait, it's short for <em> Charlotte?</em>" will come in handy, and when you're as good as they are, a split second is all you need.</p>
<p>So they're crashing at the hacker's place for now, while Nate frickin' Ford finds them a grifter so they can get Dubenich's money back from him and into Parker's bank account where it belongs.</p>
<p>Nate <em> frickin' </em> Ford. If someone had told her three years ago that this is what she'd be doing right now, working with the guy who used to chase her all over Europe, she'd have laughed you out of the city.</p>
<p>Ford's not here right now though -- he's out finding the grifter. Which leaves the hacker and the "retrieval specialist," as he calls himself.</p>
<p>He's making popcorn. Parker can smell the crisp buttery stuff wafting from the next room, but she'll wait until it's finished before stealing the bowl. Kitchens have too many knives in them for her to be comfortable with them around strangers.</p>
<p>She can always stab them, but she needs these particular strangers. For the moment.</p>
<p>They hear Eliot and his lynx dæmon before they see them. Charlie chirps and flits up to Parker's shoulder, busies herself weaving a thread of something shiny into her hair. Parker rolls her head around to see them, but not enough to dislodge Charlie.</p>
<p>"Yeah, it's still weird working with a crew," Parker says. "But I guess there are perks."</p>
<p>"Yeah?"</p>
<p>"Yeah."</p>
<p>"Hm." Eliot's face does something, but Parker can't tell what. She looks at his dæmon then -- dæmons are easier to read than humans, most of the time -- but the lynx gives nothing away.</p>
<p>They do get closer with the bowl of popcorn, though.</p>
<p>"Yeah, like money. Money's always good."</p>
<p>"There's something wrong with you," he growls.</p>
<p>"You said that already."</p>
<p>"Figured I'd say it again, since clearly the first time didn't stick."</p>
<p>"Why does it have to stick?"</p>
<p>He stops, and stares at her. His eyes are very blue, Parker notices. Not the same shade as the Hope Diamond, but then not everything can be the Hope Diamond.</p>
<p>"Wrong sticks out," his dæmon says. It's the first time she's spoken to them, and Charlie stills at her spot on Parker's shoulder, her little claws tightening in place, tiny needles. "Sticking out is dangerous."</p>
<p>"Rather be too crazy than cooped up in a box," says Charlie.</p>
<p>There is that moment then, that brief <em> oh-wait-what? </em> of realizing her dæmon is the same gender, but it's over a lot quicker than normal. Eliot's eyes barely flicker, and his dæmon doesn't twitch a single muscle.</p>
<p>Why did Charlie give away that card now? But Parker can ask her about that later.</p>
<p>"Boxes keep you safe," the lynx says. Her drawl is a little more Texan than Eliot's, but just as quiet and gravelly. "Ain't that half the point of being a thief, being able to escape notice?"</p>
<p>"We stick out less than you do," says Parker.</p>
<p>"Yeah? How's that?"</p>
<p>But they're done talking. Parker scoops up the bowl from Eliot's hands and shoves a handful of popcorn into her mouth.</p>
<p>"                                                 ," says Eliot.</p>
<p>Parker gestures at her ears. "Sorry," she says through her mouthful. "Can't hear ya."</p>
<p>His empty hands twitch at his sides, then snap into --</p>
<p>Huh. Plains Sign Language. Okay.</p>
<p>He has to fingerspell <em> popcorn</em>, but by that point Parker is grinning, and Charlie has to try really hard not to laugh.</p>
<p>She holds the bowl up with one hand, and uses the other to steady her while she makes her way to the top of the bookcase next to the sofa, Charlie flitting up next to her.</p>
<p>"Come and get it."</p>
<p>There's a split second where nothing happens. Eliot is staring at her, and so is -- Sarah? Sarah -- and all Parker can hear is the faint hum of the anbaric lights overhead.</p>
<p>She eats another handful of popcorn.</p>
<p>Then Sarah jumps up onto the sofa and the shelf, taking the same path Parker did, just as nimbly. She lands a few inches away from Parker, but immediately backs to the edge: gives them space.</p>
<p>She doesn't realize until a second later that she too has scooted toward the other edge. But Sarah blinks at her; a nod, Parker thinks.</p>
<p>Okay. That's good. They're on the same page.</p>
<p>"You don't have hands, though," Parker says. "So."</p>
<p>Sarah doesn't answer. She doesn't have to. She just takes the edge of the bowl in her mouth, and Parker automatically lets go because you <em> don't touch someone else's dæmon even by accident</em>, and then Sarah leans down with it and Eliot takes it from her.</p>
<p>"That's cheating," says Charlie as Sarah jumps back down to the sofa.</p>
<p>"You say that like it's a bad thing," Eliot says. Then he smiles, and eats a single piece of popcorn.</p>
<p>They still don't like new people. But Parker smiles back anyway.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Twelve Years Ago. New Amsterdam.</b>
</p>
<p>After everything that just happened in England, Archie is glad to be back in New Denmark. It's home, it's busier and younger; it's easier to hide in. Certainly the upset surrounding Edward Coulter's death is going to keep people occupied for some time, but eventually the Brytish Museum <em> is </em> going to realize that it's missing a Degas, and Archie is happy to be far away when they do.</p>
<p>Maybe that's why when he feels his pocket getting picked, and he looks around to find the culprit, he doesn't simply thrash the girl to teach her manners.</p>
<p>Carrie does dart forward to pin her dæmon, though.</p>
<p>"Let us go!" the girl gasps. She's a feral little thing, her eyes wild, and her dæmon struggles beneath Carrie's paws, his wings beating furiously, his beak savagely pecking at her legs. But the little dæmon doesn't change from his magpie shape. This young, fourteen at the outside, and settled already? "Let us go, we didn't --"</p>
<p>"My wallet, young lady," Archie says, and holds out his hand for it.</p>
<p>"How do you know I have it?"</p>
<p>"I'm a thief, my dear. I know when someone's picking my pocket."</p>
<p>"Let go of us first!"</p>
<p>The fear is dripping off her like melting snow. Carrie steps away, and the dæmon flees up to his girl, who clutches him close to her chest, her fingers burrowing in his feathers. Archie keeps his hand out.</p>
<p>"... Fine," the girl says, and digs into her pocket and tosses the wallet back one-handed. Her eyes are still wide.</p>
<p>"Can we buy you dinner?" says Carrie.</p>
<p>Archie stares at her, same as the girl.</p>
<p>"You're too thin, kiddo," Carrie says. "When was the last time you had something to eat?"</p>
<p>"If you touch me, I'll scream," the girl spits. "And I can scream <em> really </em> loud."</p>
<p>"I don't doubt it," Archie says, finally catching on to his dæmon's intent, shock and then concern filtering in that that is where the girl's head goes. "That's not what I want. What I want is to teach you how to be a better thief."</p>
<p>Her eyes brighten with hope. "Wait. Really?"</p>
<p>"Yes. Really."</p>
<p>And from there, well --</p>
<p>Well.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. Boston.</b>
</p>
<p>"She jumps the gun and goes in herself. No idea what she was thinking!"</p>
<p>What she was <em> thinking</em>, thinks Eliot, furious, was that she wanted to go in alone to save <em> your </em> decrepit ass!</p>
<p>He can't say it; Nate would have a field day. Sarah can't show it; Leach's fox dæmon would be able to tell, and they need Leach to cooperate with them so they can help Parker.</p>
<p>So Sarah's hackles don't rise, her ears don't flatten, she doesn't hiss or show her claws, and Eliot doesn't say a damn word. They just go where Nate directs them.</p>
<p>Hardison's been pissy since they arrived, when Eliot said he wasn't big on attacking this place in broad daylight. On one hand, seriously? Eliot's trying to do his damn job, which is <em> protecting the team</em>, which includes <em> risk assessment</em>, which means looking at all the ways something can possibly go wrong. And there are so many ways this thing can go wrong …</p>
<p>"If they find Parker, they're not gonna arrest her," says Leach over the radio, halfway through Eliot's second sweep of the perimeter. "They'll kill her!"</p>
<p>That. That is how it can go wrong.</p>
<p>Eliot doesn't have much time to catastrophize though, because then Parker has her radio, and Leach is calling her <em> kiddo</em>, and Parker is calling him <em> sir</em>, and --</p>
<p>He needs to find an exit, why isn't Hardison finding him a damn <em> exit? </em></p>
<p>Then Hardison finds him one, and the brief satisfaction of being told the office idea was a good call is immediately overshadowed.</p>
<p>"Wait a second. You want me to climb a forty-story building in broad daylight?"</p>
<p>"Yes. And I want you to do it now, we're up against the clock," says Nate.</p>
<p>… huh. Window cleaners. Alright, that works.</p>
<p>"Good thing we're not afraid of heights," says Sarah, and they get to work.</p>
<p>Having something to do with his hands has always helped. It's why they love cooking, it's why they love playing guitar. Doing something quiets the static in their head.</p>
<p>Which, right now, is centered on Parker.</p>
<p>Yeah, he gets why Hardison is so damn pissy today. Because that's how he is too, on edge and growly more than normal. Because Parker is in trouble.</p>
<p>But really the thing that's getting under his skin the most is that this Leach bastard straight-up said he was Parker's father, but that she wasn't his daughter. Not his <em> real </em> daughter. <em> She doesn't fit in anywhere</em>, Leach had said on the roof, and Eliot felt Sarah's bright new hatred so strongly that his own teeth hurt with the desire to rip and tear. He still feels it now, even at the tower and far away from Leach's damn smug face. God. Parker ...</p>
<p>Then they're there, they're waiting for her, and Sarah finally lets herself pace a little, Eliot grips the crowbar way too tightly. Come on, Parker, come on, <em> come on </em>--</p>
<p>And then --</p>
<p>Yeah, okay. Yes, the blight is bad. Hannity is bad. That's known at this point. But Eliot --</p>
<p>He doesn't have to look at Sarah to know she's thinking it too. That deep in their heart of hearts, Parker being safe is more important than preventing whatever damage the blight can do.</p>
<p>But if Parker is gonna dive right back into danger, like hell is she gonna do it without Eliot watching her back.</p>
<p>It's good, to smash through the window with the crowbar and come silently into the hall just in time to punch out the goon that's drawn on Parker. It's good, to hear Parker say, "Hardison, options," and to see Charlie settle briefly on Sarah's shoulder before taking flight again. It's good, to squabble together in the stairwell and have a plan, and be together to execute it.</p>
<p>It isn't until it's all over that Eliot really allows himself to think about how wrong it was, this thing that Hannity was planning. It couldn't just have been her and that Vorhees mook. Something that big, even if it was to <em> increase market share</em>, that has to have had the Magisterium stamp on it. But why would the Magisterium orchestrate a famine?</p>
<p>"Nate would have an idea about it," Sarah says when he voices those thoughts. She's folded up in a tight loaf on the sofa next to him, her eyes glued to the little screen broadcasting tonight's hockey game. "We should ask him. He was Magisterium-adjacent for the longest time, he'd know."</p>
<p>"Nate's got other things to worry about," Eliot murmurs. "Like --"</p>
<p>But he can't say it. His jaw locks, and without having to look, he can sense every muscle in Sarah's body ratcheting tighter than a piano wire.</p>
<p>It takes a lot longer than he would like before he can trust himself to speak again.</p>
<p>"We're not going at it head on. Nate won't go at him head on. He's too smart for that."</p>
<p>"We have a team now," Sarah says. She does look at him then, very carefully not trembling, and he lifts his hand, hesitates.</p>
<p>"It's not the same," she says. "We're not alone anymore, Eliot. We know what we did wrong, we can do it right this time."</p>
<p>"You sound like Parker," he tells her, instead of anything else.</p>
<p>"You say that like it's a bad thing." Her eyes are wide, and she shifts once, in place, not moving towards him despite the fact that he knows, because he feels the same, that every inch of her wants to press tight to him, to comfort and gentle.</p>
<p>"We have a team now," he says. "Sarah, if anything happened to them, I --"</p>
<p>"It won't. We won't let anything happen to them."</p>
<p>Neither of them needs to say aloud what they'd do to keep the team safe. Some words are better unheard, better unsaid.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>"Thank you for coming on such short notice," Marisa says. She locks the apartment lift and tucks the key into her blouse, then gestures toward the living room. "May I fetch you some tea? Water?"</p>
<p>"Thank you, but no," says Moreau. He nods to his man -- a bearded fellow with short sand-colored hair, and a jackal of a dæmon -- and the three of them proceed down the hall.</p>
<p>Moreau sits in the chair opposite the sofa. His man stands at his left shoulder. This one is about the same height as the last one, but not as … well. He's not quite as physically imposing, is he? A shame, when a quarter of the whole point of security is to be enough of a deterrent for interlopers not to try anything in the first place. Where's the style, where's the presence?</p>
<p>"So." Moreau sits back and crosses one ankle over the opposite knee. It's a very Asriel pose, not lessened by the fact that he has a snake dæmon resting on his shoulders instead of a snow leopard at his knee. Stelmaria is ostentatious, sometimes. Marcelle doesn't need to be anything other than what she is: an extremely venomous snake. But power is power all the same.</p>
<p>Her dæmon glances at her, but she ignores him.</p>
<p>"So."</p>
<p>"I have to assume you didn't summon me just to exchange pleasantries."</p>
<p>"No, no. Your time is valuable, I understand that."</p>
<p>He tips his head to one side, watching her.</p>
<p>"Simply put, we must move up the timetable. Asriel is conducting experiments in the North, and the Oblation Board must be at the forefront of discovery. Your contributions have been very valuable so far, but we need --"</p>
<p>"This project has been going on for years, Marisa," Moreau says. Her dæmon twitches at the use of her given name; she curls her fingers into his fur, makes a fist in it, pulling at him: <em> stop that, pay attention</em>. "Six years, to be precise. Over half a decade I have been supplying you with the materials for your little experiments, washing bribe money through my other enterprises. Not that it hasn't been fun." He spreads his hands and laughs, all dark eyes and white teeth, a shark's laugh, then steeples his fingers together and surveys her over them. "And not that I don't appreciate your business. But if this is just a vanity project to get one over on Asriel Belacqua, then frankly I think I've been wasting my time. And that makes you a liability."</p>
<p>She can feel her dæmon itching to grab Marcelle behind the head and get his teeth in her spine. She can practically taste the metallic blood already, in her own mouth.</p>
<p>They'd be dead before they even tried it.</p>
<p>"To say nothing of the fact that the initial foray into this business cost me my favorite specialist," Moreau continues.</p>
<p>The man at his left moves slightly, a minute twitch of the hands, a shift of the stance. Well, now <em> that </em> is interesting. Playing favorites, is he? she thinks; and how do you like knowing you're second place?</p>
<p>"I'm so sorry to hear it."</p>
<p>"You're quite polarizing, Marisa."</p>
<p>"I've been told I have that effect on people, sometimes, yes."</p>
<p>She smiles at him. Something in the smile must have placated him, because he relaxes now, his shoulders going down just a bit, just enough. <em> Got him</em>.</p>
<p>"At any rate, no, this is no vanity project. This is an essential task that I have been entrusted with. I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase, 'by any means necessary'?"</p>
<p>"A quite useful term when the people in charge are more concerned with results than morality. Or -- no, in this case the results <em> are </em> the morality, isn't that right?"</p>
<p>"You don't believe in a greater good, Damien?"</p>
<p>"Will you report me to the Consistorial Court if I say no?"</p>
<p>"Sometimes in the course of serving the greater good, it is necessary to shake hands with heretics."</p>
<p>Moreau laughs again at that, a proper open laugh. "Whatever you need to tell yourself."</p>
<p>"The fact of the matter is," and she won't allow herself to be annoyed by that, she <em> won't</em>, "that the Oblation Board must accomplish what we have set out to do, and we must do it quickly or the last six years will have been in vain. I will be perfectly plain with you. If we fail, if <em> I </em> fail, then leadership of the Board <em> will </em> be taken from me and passed to someone else -- someone who will be much less tolerant of your other enterprises than I am."</p>
<p>"Are you threatening me, Marisa?"</p>
<p>"I have just as much to lose as you, Damien."</p>
<p>"You've already lost your reputation once. I think you can handle losing it again."</p>
<p>That pins her in place. She watches, breathless with anger, as he unfolds himself from the chair and walks towards the hall. Is that really what he -- and when she's done so much -- how <em> can </em> he?!</p>
<p>"But," and he draws out the word, savoring it, the bastard, "if what you say is true and the Board passes to someone else after time is up, then that means the relationship has to be built up from the ground all over again."</p>
<p>"Better the devil we know," his dæmon says.</p>
<p>"Exactly right."</p>
<p>She really does hate him, she realizes. Not even the kind of loathing that's fun to share with someone, like Hugh MacPhail or Asriel. Just flat, boring, platonic hatred.</p>
<p>"So." Moreau slips his hands in his pockets and looks down at her, from all the way across the room. "What kind of timetable do we have?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. Dubai.</b>
</p>
<p>Olivia's Matthew settled as a raven last year, and Jim couldn't have been more proud.</p>
<p>He wishes it had been in different circumstances. Losing one's mother is a lifechanging experience, to be sure, and it does come to everyone eventually. But to have it happen so soon …</p>
<p>He misses Pippa. More than that, he knows Olivia misses her. Having her dæmon settle during the funeral, Olivia had said at the time, felt like one last nail in the coffin because Pippa and Liam would never get to see it. But in her telegrams to him since then, she's said that she likes it now, they've grown used to it.</p>
<p>She meets him at the aerodock, and he wraps his arms around his daughter tight.</p>
<p>"Look at you," he says, holding her shoulders. Wilhelmina noses along Matthew's feathers, grooming gently, and he gives a soft chirp in response. "You're all grown up."</p>
<p>"Daaad," she says, but she smiles. "You look good. Congrats on the Interpol thing."</p>
<p>"Thank you, sweetheart." He hugs her again. "And you, congratulations on your thesis. I wish I could have been there to see it. Next up is the doctorate, yeah?"</p>
<p>"Yeah." She makes a face. "Stepmonster isn't keen on it, though. Something about game theory not being a holy pursuit or whatever."</p>
<p>"Do I need to have a word with Hugh about him?"</p>
<p>"Dad --"</p>
<p>"I can do that now, if you want."</p>
<p>"Dad!"</p>
<p>He stops and looks at her, really looks. Her mouth is pressed in a thin line, and her eyes are wide and determined, with just the same set to her jaw that Pippa would have during one of their knock-down drag-out fights. Olivia is too young to remember them as anything other than shouting, Jim thinks; the divorce went through seven years ago, just long enough for the Magisterium to get tentatively used to the idea before Nate and Maggie followed suit.</p>
<p>He's derailing.</p>
<p>"Alright," he says at last. "I just worry about you."</p>
<p>"We can take care of ourself, Dad." Matthew's voice isn't quite hesitant, but his feathers are puffed out -- he looks bigger than normal, and Wilhelmina stops, blinks, draws back a moment. Olivia and Matthew look at each other, and then Matthew continues, more confident. "We've been dealing with Stepmonster for years. And once we've finished our doctorate, we can go, we can be out."</p>
<p>"Mattie," Wilhelmina says. She lifts one paw and delicately touches Matthew's beak, then strokes down one of his wings. "It isn't that. We don't doubt you can take care of yourselves."</p>
<p>"Then what is it? What is it if not -- mother henning?"</p>
<p>He'd thought about it on the airship over. How to explain to his daughter that Interpol is unrelated to the Magisterium in name only, that there is a whole lot of gilt covering up a whole lot of rot?</p>
<p>How to explain that he now viscerally understands exactly what family Pippa married into?</p>
<p>"All we want," Jim says at last, "is for you to be cautious. Life isn't a chess game."</p>
<p>Olivia looks like she wants to argue. But she only nods, and Matthew flutters back up to perch on her shoulder, and they leave the aerodock.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. Boston.</b>
</p>
<p>Nate has to hand it to the Italian. There's some nasty stuff in the envelope that, if he were the one it was about, he wouldn't want Alexander Moto having his hands on either.</p>
<p>"Look at this," Aoife whispers. She moves carefully down his arm onto the page, taps a paragraph with one foreleg. "This, right here. Nate, what if we --?"</p>
<p>"Yeah." His eyes narrow. He knows the way of good ideas, knows when to look at them directly and when to let them come to him instead. This one, well -- suffice to say an opportunity like this doesn't come often. They'd be a fool to let this slip away. "We'd need access to his banking information, of course."</p>
<p>"Of course," says Aoife. "But we can do that later. Sneak up on him, yeah?"</p>
<p>"Yeah."</p>
<p>Nate checks his watch to make sure they still have time, then digs into his pocket for the portable camera, and Aoife climbs back to her usual spot on his shoulder. He snaps a photo of every single page in the packet.</p>
<p>"Okay," he says, "let's steal a war crime."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Six Years Ago. San Lorenzo.</b>
</p>
<p>"There are two things that the client is expecting us to deliver," Damien says. He smiles. "Well, I say two things, but really it's two categories."</p>
<p>"Am I overseeing both?"</p>
<p>"You'll be personally handling one of them. You're the only one I trust to have the gentle touch needed for such things."</p>
<p>The smile, which is always a little sharp, blunts just a little around the edges. Eliot shifts in place, a slight change of weight. He can never quite be still under that glance; it's like looking directly at the sun.</p>
<p>Damien trusts him. Damien, who trusts no one.</p>
<p>"Belgrade is where we'll be making the drop," Damien says. "But it's also where we'll be finding half of what we need." He hands Eliot a few pages paperclipped together.</p>
<p>His stomach flips. Beside him, he can feel Sarah working not to twitch or blink. "An orphanage?"</p>
<p>"The client wants to start her own," Marcelle says in her soft, deliberate voice. "And what with the ... turbulence in that area, there are a lot of orphans not receiving the care they need. She wants to start her own elsewhere, to make sure they'll be properly cared for. The other items requested are for the site itself."</p>
<p>That doesn't make any sense. Why would the client want the kids there before the orphanage is even built? And what kind of self-aggrandizing --</p>
<p>But if it's important to know, Damien will tell him.</p>
<p>He has to believe that.</p>
<p>He takes the packet with him back to his quarters, looks through the specs of the Belgrade orphanage where the children are, the description of the children the client is asking for. All genders, but only healthy kids, and only between the ages of ten and thirteen.</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>"Damien doesn't -- he doesn't do that," Sarah says. "He'd never do that."</p>
<p>It's too messy, she doesn't have to add. Damien might not have morals the same way normal people do, but he does have standards.</p>
<p>"And he's too smart to put us in charge of it, if that were what it is," she whispers. "Because if, if it <em> were</em>, we wouldn't. We couldn't. He knows that."</p>
<p>"What, Sarah," Eliot says, his throat dry and his eyes burning, "you saying we still have some kinda soul left in us?"</p>
<p>"Just a little."</p>
<p>It startles a laugh out of him, makes a little of the normal bleakness just a little lighter. "Sarah ..."</p>
<p>"Yeah, El?"</p>
<p>"Thanks for keeping me honest."</p>
<p>"You were already honest. I just put words to it."</p>
<p>He actually smiles then. It makes his mouth hurt.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. Boston.</b>
</p>
<p>"He <em> hypnotized </em> us," Lucille says. She's curled up in a tight ball, her dark fur bristling, her eyes staring ahead into nothing. Hardison is right beside her, one of his hands buried in the short coarse fur at the base of her neck, the other hand gripping the wrought-iron fence in front of them so hard it looks like it hurts.</p>
<p>Charlie lands beside Lucille, folds her wings up tight, doesn't say anything. Neither does Parker, though she slips around the bench to sit on the other side of Hardison.</p>
<p>"He hypnotized us, and then he said, you do whatever it takes to finish the con," Lucille continues. She looks up at Hardison, who wordlessly digs in his pocket and hands her colorful cube to her. <em> Click-click-click-click</em>, <em> click-click-click-click</em>, up right down left, up right down left, does he pre-scramble the colored squares for her? He does, she's sure she's seen him do it before.</p>
<p>Rubix, that's what it's called. Rubix. Roo-bicks. Rubix.</p>
<p>It's easier to think on how funny the name of the cube is than it is to think on what Nate's done.</p>
<p>"That's garbage," Charlie says to Lucille. She's better at words than Parker sometimes, even if they are the same person; and their time with the crew has made it easier for Charlie to talk to people. Well -- to the crew, at least. "It's garbage what he did to you."</p>
<p>"But we can't be mad at him." Lucille's high voice is rapid now, just like the clicking of the cube. "We can't, because it got the job done, and we know we couldn't have done it otherwise, he did what he had to do."</p>
<p>"Okay, but that doesn't make it <em> right</em>," says Parker, too loudly. Hardison looks up at her and she makes herself keep eye contact with him, so he can understand she means what she's saying. "Maybe it's a reason, but it isn't an excuse. It doesn't excuse the fact that what he did was -- was -- breaking your trust."</p>
<p>She stops, draws a breath. Both Hardison and Lucille are looking at her now, Lucille isn't clicking the cube anymore. And it's almost too many eyes, she almost wants to just jump up and fly away from the look on both their faces. Their eyes are so deep it almost hurts to look at them.</p>
<p>But only almost.</p>
<p>"Because that's what he did," she continues. "If he needed to hypnotize you, he could have asked first. If he'd asked you, to help with the con, you would have known ahead of time. You wouldn't have been nervous about playing, you would have known and it would have been okay. But he didn't ask. So, no, it's not okay, and you have every right to be mad at Nate. And even if you're not mad at him --"</p>
<p>She draws a breath. This is the longest she's ever talked about <em> feelings </em> that she can remember.</p>
<p>"-- <em> I </em> am. Remember when Sophie played us, for the First David? Eliot was mad for months. And he was right. Because you don't con your own crew, and that's exactly what Nate did to you."</p>
<p>Charlie hops up onto Lucille's shoulder and gently runs her sleek head against her fur. Parker feels a mirror of the touch, a brief glance, and she sees Hardison shiver slightly in response. But he's still looking at her, like -- like --</p>
<p>Parker can't name it. But she knows no one else has ever looked at her like that before.</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"Nothing," Hardison says. For the first time since they sat outside the pub, he smiles. The anbaric streetlamp illuminates him in gold, glowing like a stained-glass angel in a church. "Thanks, Parker."</p>
<p>"No problem." She's still too loud. Charlie flutters her wings briefly, and Parker clears her throat. "No problem," she says again. "I just wanted you to know. You have a right to be mad. If I was running a crew, that would be the last thing I'd think to do. I wouldn't even ever think of it in the first place. It would be a non-thing."</p>
<p>"A non-thing."</p>
<p>"Yeah."</p>
<p>He's still smiling. Hardison is really, actually, beautiful. Parker knows art from the inside out, but beauty in art is generally decided by the people with the most money. Sometimes something will catch her breath, like a state-of-the-art Glen Reader, or a particularly flawless diamond, but even that doesn't make her cry. She hears all over about things that are so beautiful they make people cry, but she never really got it. Never really thought of it as anything but another figure of speech.</p>
<p>Then tonight happened, and Hardison played that solo, and she <em> did </em> cry.</p>
<p>And looking at him now …</p>
<p>"I gotta go," Parker says. Charlie withdraws from Lucille and flies up to Parker's shoulder. "We gotta go now. Sorry."</p>
<p>"It's okay," Hardison says. Lucille slips into his arms and he wraps them around her, one hand scritching under her chin. It seems to soothe her. "I get it. You do what you gotta do."</p>
<p>"We'll see you tomorrow," Charlie promises.</p>
<p>"See you tomorrow," says Lucille.</p>
<p>She looks so soft, <em> so </em> soft, and Parker realizes all at once that she wants to reach out and stroke Lucille's fur, from her head down her back all the way to her tail, and Parker --</p>
<p>Parker shoots up out of her seat and springs for the fire escape, heads for the closest roof.</p>
<p>Over the quiet sounds of finding her footholds, she can hear Hardison below call out a soft, "Good night."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Three</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. Boston.</b>
</p>
<p>"Didn't expect to see you in New Denmark anytime this decade," Eliot says.</p>
<p>Lee shrugs, hands in his coat pockets, hat at an angle just too rakish to be done by accident. Fuckin' rascal, this one. But Eliot ain't complaining; Lee is looking good. It's been eight years since the last time they properly saw each other, and the only thing that's changed is he has more laugh lines around his eyes.</p>
<p>"Well, you know how Iorek disappeared?"</p>
<p>"Oh, yeah." Eliot frowns. "I heard about that. So Iofur Raknison is king now, huh?"</p>
<p>"I ain't heard from Iorek in three years," says Lee. "One year, fine, we all got business to take care of. Two, okay, start gettin' worried. But three? That's a long time."</p>
<p>Eliot opens and then closes his mouth.</p>
<p>"Hey, I'm not raggin' on you, man," Lee adds. "I might not have seen you in eight years, but you wrote. Mighta fell off the map for a little while, but you came back."</p>
<p>That's putting it very, very mildly. But Eliot only nods.</p>
<p>"I liked that postcard you sent from Paris," Hester pipes up. Eliot looks at her, and her eyes crinkle in her version of a smile. "That Eiffel Tower's mighty pretty."</p>
<p>"You should see it in person," Sarah says. "They wired it with anbaric lights, so at night they do a light show sometimes."</p>
<p>"No kidding?"</p>
<p>"No kidding."</p>
<p>"Well then, I guess after Trollesund we're a-heading to Paris," declares Lee.</p>
<p>"Trollesund? That explains Boston, then."</p>
<p>"Yup. We're catching a steamship outta here, docking at Amsterdam. Somehow a balloon still ain't quite got the long range needed for crossing an ocean yet."</p>
<p>"Say it ain't so."</p>
<p>"Well, it gave us an excuse to see you on the way." Lee claps his shoulder. "I gotta say, I was kinda surprised to learn you'd settled here. Figured you might stay in Texas."</p>
<p>"Ah, well." Eliot rubs the back of his neck. "Plans change."</p>
<p>"And you've picked up a crew?"</p>
<p>"Yeah." He does smile then. "I'm running with a new crowd these days."</p>
<p>"Time was, you never ran with anyone. -- still not ragging on you, El," he says, still serious; maybe he can see the tightness settle in Eliot's jaw at what he's said. "There's bein' alone 'cause you're used to it, and there's bein' alone 'cause you like it. I kinda figured you were the first, not the second. Didn't mean nothin' by it."</p>
<p>He can't argue. Not when Lee's got him dead to rights. He shrugs instead and says, "I guess you got me there."</p>
<p>"I'm happy for you, Eliot. I really am." Lee picks up his bag from the sidewalk and shoulders it. "Oh, hey, you ain't seen Shelly or Vance in all your travels, have you?"</p>
<p>"Ain't seen either of 'em in a long while," Eliot says. "But I did hear Vance is a colonel now."</p>
<p>"No kidding. Well, I guess the army'll promote anyone if they're pretty enough."</p>
<p>"Yeah, that's why they kicked you out."</p>
<p>Lee clutches his chest, pretending to be wounded, but they're both laughing now. "Clever as the devil and twice as pretty," he chuckles. "If I were a marrying man, you'd be in danger of gettin' a ring pulled on you one of these days."</p>
<p>"Yeah, well, good thing you ain't inclined towards anything but balloons and bears, then."</p>
<p>"You say that like it's a bad thing."</p>
<p>"What time's your ship leaving?"</p>
<p>"'Nother hour."</p>
<p>"Got time for a drink before you go?"</p>
<p>"I always got time for a drink," Lee says. Hester rolls her eyes at Sarah, but in the same fond longsuffering way that Eliot remembers from way back when, and she trots easily beside Sarah as she and Eliot lead them to McRory's.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Two Years Ago. Los Angeles.</b>
</p>
<p>The first day that he met them, Hardison and Eliot agreed: Parker was twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag. Tonight, Eliot knows they were definitely lowballing on the actual amount of crazy.</p>
<p>He's told her before, but it never seems to stick. And with what happened earlier today, her jumping out the damn window <em> without knowing if he was there to catch her </em> --</p>
<p>He <em> was </em> there, and he did catch her. He couldn't have let her fall, not if he could help it. He ain't trying to deny that or cover it up or anything. But the fact that she jumped, not expecting to be caught?</p>
<p>Eliot's mind can't quite wrap around it.</p>
<p>These are all surface thoughts, skimming through while he focuses on the faked brain scan. Parker, she's …</p>
<p>"Kinda like us," says Sarah. "Used to working alone, whackdoodle about it to boot."</p>
<p>"Way to boost my self esteem there."</p>
<p>"Just doing my job."</p>
<p>Retzing's doctor looks satisfied, and Retzing seems to buy it. They go off with Nate and Sophie; Eliot goes over to the MRI room, and Hardison sits by him on the cot, a little under a foot apart, Lucille settling in his lap.</p>
<p>Parker comes up and gestures with both hands. Wordlessly, both men scoot apart further to make room for her.</p>
<p><em> Click-click-click-click</em>, goes Lucille's Rubix cube, loud in the quiet of the room.</p>
<p>"I can't hear what's going on on the radio," Parker says.</p>
<p>The clicking stops.</p>
<p>"Sorry, we just," Charlie says in her quick staccato voice, from her perch on Parker's left shoulder. This close, Eliot can see the full iridescence of the teal in her magpie wings. "We have a brain thing, it's hard to understand words when there's other noise."</p>
<p>"Wait, that's an actual thing?" Sarah exchanges a look with Eliot, then turns toward Charlie. "Word scrambling is a thing?"</p>
<p>Hardison blinks at them from the other side of Parker. "Yeah, girl," he says, and he's definitely talking directly to Sarah, which feels a little weird, but Eliot's not about to stop him. "Central auditory processing disorder, when your brain and ears mix things up wrong, it's a whole thing. There's an acronym and everything."</p>
<p>"I won't do the Rubix cube while there's talking anymore," Lucille says. "If that's what y'all need." She looks between Parker and Eliot, her dark eyes serious and earnest, and Eliot feels something warm curl up in his stomach.</p>
<p>Sophie coughs over the radio. "Can we focus now?" she murmurs, and now all six of them are silent, listening to Nate swagger and Sophie soothe and the mark go from eager to dubious despite it.</p>
<p>Then Nate writes the mark a <em> check</em>.</p>
<p>"What is he doing?!" Parker and Charlie hiss in unison. Charlie flies up in a burst of teal and black and white, and Parker puts her hands on Eliot's and Hardison's thighs and launches herself up and out of the room.</p>
<p>What is she --?</p>
<p>"Fuck," Sarah says under her breath, and then she and Eliot follow.</p>
<p>The night does not improve from there.</p>
<p>Sophie sends them away so she can wrangle Nate. If there was one thing Eliot could wish for, it would be for Aoife to be in a different shape than a damn spider, so he could actually read her damn body language, because Nate sure as hell doesn't give anything away. But no, his dæmon has to be just as inscrutable as the fucking rest of him.</p>
<p>It's a miracle Sophie's put up with him for so long. But Eliot sure as hell isn't gonna.</p>
<p>There's one little thing keeping Eliot from actually losing his temper, which is frayed to a single little thread. It's the fact that Parker stole his leather cuff at some point between the hospital and the car, and has been wearing it since before they arrived back at the hotel tonight. Something about seeing his cuff on her wrist makes part of his noisy brain go still.</p>
<p>"Man, I knew he fell off the wagon last year, because who didn't hear about that," Hardison says. He's racked out on the hotel couch, his head tipped back, staring at the popcorn ceiling. "But like, there's knowing it, and there's seeing it in action."</p>
<p>"Yeah, it sucks," echoes Parker's voice from the air vent above them. "I don't like Drunk Nate."</p>
<p>"How far are we gonna let this go?"</p>
<p>Hardison raises his head, blinks, nonplussed. Eliot stops pacing the floor and continues: "No, seriously. If Nate keeps on like this, something is gonna give. How far are we gonna let this go?"</p>
<p>"Well, we've only done like. Three jobs before this," Parker says, quieter than before. "It wasn't this bad before. Maybe it'll get better again."</p>
<p>"Right, but what if it gets worse?"</p>
<p>"I dunno," says Hardison, and he too sounds subdued. "Maybe we'll stage an intervention."</p>
<p>"Do you think that'll work?"</p>
<p>Parker's voice is hopeful, almost too hopeful; it hurts to hear. Hardison looks at Eliot then, and an understanding passes between them. As much as they can, they're going to preserve that hope.</p>
<p>"Yeah, Parker," Eliot says at last. "Hardison has good ideas. I don't see how it can't work."</p>
<p>"Okay, then that's what we'll do."</p>
<p>And if Nate gets worse, then they'll just -- figure it out.</p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. Boston.</b>
</p>
<p>Alec and Eliot have been grabbing coffee in the mornings for a couple months now -- just often enough for it now to be classified as a habit, which he's personally thrilled about, even if he's not gonna be telling Eliot that.</p>
<p>He really is just a giant cat. Sarah is on the small side of the big cat scale, and Eliot is short enough for his head to level approximately with Alec's shoulder. But personality wise, there's so much crammed in there it's spilling out of their ears.</p>
<p>Anyway -- cats. Eliot might grump and grumble and complain, but ever since the end of the Iceman job last year when Alec hugged him and he didn't push away, Alec has <em> known </em> that there is a secret sweet center to this particular tootsie pop. This is a man who knows every possible way to dislocate a limb, to say nothing of all the other fun stuff a hitter does on a regular basis. And he can't stop Alec from giving him a hug? He's only tolerating it because of Parker? Sure, man.</p>
<p>But he doesn't push it, and he doesn't call it what it is, because Eliot's gotta come to him.</p>
<p>And these coffee outings are a definite step forward. Alec knows how much sugar he puts in his coffee and when he prefers chocolatl instead. That's a goddamn victory right there.</p>
<p>Today Alec is extra glad that it's a thing now, because he really needs to talk to someone, and Nate and Sophie ain't gonna cut it.</p>
<p>"Kinda glad those Pallogen goons ain't gonna crash the coffee shop anymore," he says, on their way walking back. "Ashley was nice, but spilled coffee just isn't worth it, man."</p>
<p>"Hey, dude, you were the one who said to go nuts."</p>
<p>Lucille chitters briefly in Alec's ear, little nonsense sounds. She's perched in his backpack now, settled warmly on top of the portable ordinator and associated anbaric wires and chargers, working on a bearclaw. Sarah wouldn't be caught dead in a backpack; she's just a skosh too big, for one, but she also really prefers walking under her own steam.</p>
<p>"Had to change my shirt, too," Eliot continues, his customary grumble softened by the fact that he's doing so around a paper cup of coffee.  "Blood <em> and </em> coffee, I had to wash the damn thing twice. Once to get the blood out and the second time to get the coffee."</p>
<p>"I'm sorry. Next time I'll give you advance warning so you can wear a dark shirt for when you beat up pharma meatheads."</p>
<p>"Dark --? Dammit, Hardison, I ain't just gonna leave the stain in just because it's harder to see, just because <em> you </em> mop up spilled soda with your damn jacket sleeve --"</p>
<p>"C'mon, man, that was one time --"</p>
<p>They bicker amiably for the next minute and a half; it takes them to their bench in the park, where they normally sit and birdwatch for the rest of the hour. But Alec has something in mind a little more pressing than the ongoing drama of the asshole bluejay that drives off all the finches from their own territory.</p>
<p>They take their normal spots on the bench, Sarah settled in a loaf next to Eliot's boots, Lucille's backpack tucked snugly between Alec and the bench arm. During a lull in the conversation, Alec shares a look with his dæmon and turns to Eliot and says, "Look, man, I gotta tell you something."</p>
<p>"What? Dude, if it's about laundry again, I don't know what to tell ya."</p>
<p>"No, not laundry." He fidgets with his coffee cup. "It's about Parker."</p>
<p>Eliot looks at him properly then, mild confusion drawing his eyebrows together in a frown. "What about her?"</p>
<p>"She told me something last night."</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>Alec pauses. He wants Eliot to understand what's happened, so he can fully get the weight of it, the lightness of it. But he also wants Eliot not to feel alienated by it, too.</p>
<p>He wants Eliot to stay.</p>
<p>"So, uh." He clears his throat. "You know how I've had a thing for Parker for a while."</p>
<p>An expression crosses Eliot's face that Alec can't quite read, and then he settles into a sort of open, wry look. "Yeah, dude, since like. Day one."</p>
<p>"Yeah. I." Why is his stomach so buzzy? It's like the worst combination of coffee and soda ever, and he hasn't even had any soda today yet. "Well, she was acting kinda weird during this last job, right? Like, not liking Ashley at all."</p>
<p>"Parker doesn't do well around new people," Eliot says, the same way another person would say <em> The sun rises in the east</em>.</p>
<p>"Yeah, but this was more than normal for Parker. Like, when I came back to the bar after giving Ashley her check, there was a shattered beer bottle in front of her. Last time I checked, that wasn't exactly Parker's version of normal."</p>
<p>That makes Eliot pause.</p>
<p>"Did she cut herself on the glass shards?"</p>
<p>"Not as far as I could tell."</p>
<p>"That's good."</p>
<p>He sounds distant, like he's operating on autopilot. Lucille touches Alec's arm, presses with both front paws: <em> go on</em>. So Alec swallows and continues. "Yeah. But then right after that, she said she had to tell me something."</p>
<p>"Get to the point, Hardison."</p>
<p>"I'm -- I'm getting to the point, man, don't rush me."</p>
<p>It seems to occur to Eliot at the same time it occurs to Alec that their normal back-and-forth feels weird here, feels wrong in a way it hasn't before. They stare at each other for a moment; the only sound is the bluejay's call in the trees across the path.</p>
<p>"Okay," Eliot says. He takes a long sip from his coffee cup and looks out towards the trees, then back to Alec. "What did Parker say?"</p>
<p>"She said she was having feelings." Eliot's eyes are blue, since when have they been this blue? Alec takes a drink himself, just to have something to do with his hands. "For pretzels."</p>
<p>"Pretzels."</p>
<p>"Yeah."</p>
<p>"And she was lookin' at you when she said it."</p>
<p>"Yeah."</p>
<p>"What did you say?"</p>
<p>"I said, 'They're right here when you want them.' And that was it."</p>
<p>"She didn't say anything else?"</p>
<p>"No."</p>
<p>"Hm."</p>
<p>"I think I did the right thing," Alec says. His stomach keeps twisting over itself. "We're gonna do this on Parker's schedule, I ain't pushing her any faster than she wants to go. I just wanted to tell you."</p>
<p>"What -- like I have any say over what happens between the two of you?" Eliot pinches the bridge of his nose, sighs. "Hardison ..."</p>
<p>"I'm not trying to make it weird, man. I just wanted to tell you as my friend about this thing that happened."</p>
<p>Eliot is still for a long time before he says, "No, yeah. 'Course."</p>
<p>"We're happy for you," says Sarah. "Really."</p>
<p>"Thanks," Lucille replies softly.</p>
<p>There's another lull in the conversation, this one a little awkward. But then the grackles and mourning doves get into a squabble just on the other side of the path, and it's easy to fall back into the normal thing that they have where they talk about the birds and work on their coffee, and it's good.</p>
<p>Yeah. It's good.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>Maggie really wishes that Søren didn't need her help so much with Muscovite iconography.</p>
<p>"In the last four years, I've come across Marisa Coulter more times than I think is reasonably believable. I really think she's just inventing reasons to bump into me at this point," she tells Jim over breakfast at their favorite tea shop. It's a full English breakfast, which means fried mushrooms and poached eggs and blood sausage, and English bacon, which is really just ham.</p>
<p>(It's the main thing the two of them argue about these days. Easier to think about than anything else.)</p>
<p>"She's still something of an outcast in the Magisterium. Even if she's the head of the General Oblation Board, people aren't about to forget how she got there," Jim says. He drains the last few drops in his teacup. "Maybe she just likes having another woman around."</p>
<p>"Another woman whose relationship with men is capital-c Complicated?"</p>
<p>"Maggie ..."</p>
<p>"Did she do this to Pippa, too?"</p>
<p>She regrets saying it immediately. But Jim only sighs and reaches for the teapot to pour himself another cup.</p>
<p>"Pippa didn't really talk to me beyond what was necessary for custody arrangements for Olivia. I knew she was spending more time in those circles -- that's how she met her new husband. But as for Coulter, I don't know."</p>
<p>"I don't even know what she wants."</p>
<p>"Ask her, maybe?"</p>
<p>Maggie snorts and steals the last piece of "bacon" from Jim's plate. "Yeah, like that's gonna go over well."</p>
<p>But the next time she sees Coulter at the Arctic Institute, she doesn't have the opportunity to ask, because Coulter brings a guest.</p>
<p>A girl, maybe eleven or twelve, with bright eyes and what looks like an ermine dæmon, touching the glass display cases and goggling at the objects within with such excitement that it makes Maggie's heart hurt.</p>
<p>"She's the same age that Sam would be," Tom whispers, pressed close to her shoulder and tucked halfway under her jacket. "Maggie --"</p>
<p>"I know," she says. She can't breathe, she has to breathe. "I know."</p>
<p>"Is that an armored bear skull?" The girl's voice rings through the hall, loud and clear and bell-like.</p>
<p>"Lyra!"</p>
<p>"I’ve heard so much about them. It's <em> huge</em>," the girl says, her hands coming up to gesture for emphasis when she turns to Coulter, her nose scrunched up, her eyes still wide.</p>
<p>"<em>Lyra,</em>" says Coulter, and beckons firmly. "Sit down." The girl, Lyra, goes without further protest, though it looks like it physically pains her to do so.</p>
<p>"Oh, Maggie, if our Sam and Maeve had --"</p>
<p>"Don't, Tom, just -- don't," she pleads under her breath, and mercifully, her dæmon relents.</p>
<p>Coulter actually does take Lyra with her on the anticipated accidentally-on-purpose meeting. The girl looks somewhere between hopeful and apprehensive; Maggie finds herself wanting not to disappoint her.</p>
<p>"And this," Coulter says, like she's displaying another museum exhibit, "Is Dr. Collins. She's an art historian from New Denmark."</p>
<p>"Doctor Maggie Collins," Maggie says, and smiles. "I work with Doctor Søren Erikssen, the curator of the Institute. I help him identify artwork from Muscovy and Tartary."</p>
<p>"What about bears?" Lyra asks eagerly. "Do armored bears make art?"</p>
<p>Maggie's heart <em> squeezes</em>. "Well, they do make carvings sometimes, but mostly their craft is in war. They make their own armor by hand -- or paw, rather."</p>
<p>"Brilliant," Lyra breathes, rapt. "How do they do it?"</p>
<p>"They use sky iron, which is actually different from normal iron in that --"</p>
<p>"Lyra, please don't pester Dr. Collins," Coulter interrupts. She gives Lyra a look that is probably intended to look the motherly kind of disciplined, but comes off as severe instead. "I'm sure she has much better things to do."</p>
<p>"She just asked me a question. I'm more than happy to answer," Maggie says mildly.</p>
<p>Tom meets the monkey's eyes, and just as the first time four years ago, the monkey looks away first.</p>
<p>So for the next five minutes, Maggie and Lyra talk about panserbjørne and their armor, and Tom makes tentative friends with the girl's dæmon, Pantalaimon. And the entire time, Coulter lingers like a storm cloud, green and pale and promising a twister.</p>
<p>They leave, and Maggie and Tom watch them go, feeling sick to their stomach.</p>
<p>"Something is wrong here," she says. "I just wish I knew what."</p>
<p>"We'll find out." Tom periscopes, gently nudges his face against her cheek. "And we'll help Lyra."</p>
<p>"Right." She heads down to the ground-level office, asks to have a telegram sent.</p>
<p><em> Jim, we need to talk about C and the GOB</em>.</p>
<p>A few hours later, she receives her response.</p>
<p><em> Meet me outside at eight tonight</em>.</p>
<p>This can only end well.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Four</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>"No."</p>
<p>"I wish I had more of an answer."</p>
<p>"No!" Maggie raises her hands to -- she doesn't know what. She lets them fall, but her shoulders are still up; she still feels tense in a way she hasn't felt in a long time. "Clearly the Oblation Board has to answer to <em> someone</em>, there has to be <em> someone </em> who knows what it is that she does!"</p>
<p>"I wish I did know," says Jim. He looks tense too; his mouth is tight, and Wilhelmina at his feet has her ears back, her tail lashing back and forth. "Officially Interpol is not a recognized branch of the Magisterium, that's what everyone is told; but it was established by the College of Bishops, which is no longer the primary party in power within the Magisterium. Even if I could capitalize on my new position, it wouldn't get me anywhere near close enough to find out the truth."</p>
<p>"<em>Bureaucracy</em>," she hisses under her breath.</p>
<p>"I'm sorry, Maggie."</p>
<p>"It isn't your fault, Jim." She clenches her hands around the handle of her purse, just for something to do. "I just, I saw that little girl with her and something about it felt so wrong, something has always been off about her. And now she's got a kid with her, Jim, a <em> kid </em> --"</p>
<p>"What was the girl's name? Did she say?"</p>
<p>"Lyra. Coulter called her Lyra."</p>
<p>Something changes. Jim and Wilhelmina exchange a look, and then they're both focused on her, something like shock on their faces, something urgent. Under the yellow anbaric light of the street lamps and the perpetual fog of a London night, they look eerie; a shiver crawls up Maggie's spine in response.</p>
<p>"How old was she?" Jim asks.</p>
<p>"Eleven, I think. Maybe twelve. She looked kind of small for twelve."</p>
<p>"Oh my God," breathes Wilhelmina. "Lyra Belacqua. Marisa Coulter has Lyra Belacqua."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. Memphis.</b>
</p>
<p>It's weird to be back in Texas. Weird with a capital letter, and not the fun kind.</p>
<p>He's the only Texan in the crew. Nate was based out of Los Angeles and Sophie, of course, is from who knows where but definitely some part of Europe; the other two grew up in New Denmark, even if Parker did start roaming at a horrifically young age. It was <em> more </em> weird two years ago, when they went to Kensington to help Aimee and Willie (and wasn't <em> that </em>a kick in the teeth), but it's still weird now.</p>
<p>He didn't grow up in Memphis. But it is a part of Texas, and like Kensington, he finds himself wanting the rest of the crew to notice the way the blue of the sky is different, the way the bowl of it opens up into eternity different. He wants them to see a tumbleweed proper, a roadrunner, a wild hare.</p>
<p>"Do they have armadillos here?" Parker asks with keen interest.</p>
<p>… Dammit.</p>
<p>"You don't wanna see an armadillo in the daylight, Parker," Eliot says over the rumble of the van, instead of just saying yes. "If it's up and about during the day, that means it's got leprosy."</p>
<p>"Ew."</p>
<p>"Yeah, ew."</p>
<p>"No stealing the local wildlife, Parker," says Nate from the front of the van.</p>
<p><em> Whatever</em>, Parker retorts in Plains Sign. Eliot rolls his eyes at her, but she just giggles and repeats the sign, bigger, with more emphasis.</p>
<p>It was a surprise to learn that she knew it, back when they'd first become a crew but not yet a family. The good kind of surprise. Not many folks in New Denmark -- or hell, even here in Texas, or anywhere else Eliot has found himself in the course of his travels -- seem to care enough to learn any kind of sign language if they don't have to, to say nothing of an indigenous language.</p>
<p>Learning a little later that Parker has the same kind of brain thing that he does, the thing where his ears hear fine but his brain refuses to get the message, that made it click. And Hardison giving a name to it, Lucille promising not to fidget with her Rubix cube for them -- when Eliot knew even then that Lucille needs something to fidget with to help her calm down -- that clicked, too.</p>
<p>He's with the people he needs to be with. Something in him slots into place around them, something he never even felt with Aimee.</p>
<p>He hasn't talked about it with Sarah properly, though. Talking about it with his dæmon would mean giving a name to it, and Eliot has run into enough witches to know that if you name a thing, you give it power.</p>
<p>He can't give this a name.</p>
<p>Especially not after Hardison told him, so sweetly and earnestly and seriously, about Parker's feelings for "pretzels."</p>
<p>God, it's such a Parker thing to say, too.</p>
<p>He won't say a word about it. Hardison told him in confidence, and Eliot would, can, and has done a lot worse for his sake than keep a secret.</p>
<p>It doesn't eat at him; he has other, worse secrets that do that better, properly, like tapeworms, that have been gnawing away at him for years. But it burns a little hole in the breast pocket of his shirt: he keeps expecting to find a charred spot on the flannel. And when Kaye Lynn Gold smiles at him and teaches him her song, that little ember on his left side burns just a little hotter.</p>
<p>He is with his people, yes, but they already have each other. And the road he's on, they deserve a better one.</p>
<p>In his own hotel room tonight, without the radio in his ear, some kind of stubborn shame burning right next to the secret, he plays "Jolene" for guitar practice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>There are a hundred thousand people Jim could be running into at the office right now, all of whom would make him feel immensely better than Hugh MacPhail does.</p>
<p>"Father MacPhail," he says, and gives a perfunctory bow. "Thank you for coming."</p>
<p>"Hmm," Hugh says. He's much thinner than Jim, and a head taller, and his natural Scottish accent has been all but drowned out under the received pronunciation. St. Andrews, wasn't he? Not that it matters now. "The pleasure is all mine, I'm sure."</p>
<p>"May I inquire as to the nature of the visit?"</p>
<p>"You may, Agent Sterling." And yet, no answer. Wry inscrutable bastard. He could probably give Nate Ford a run for his money.</p>
<p>"Well, you don't really need a reason to drop in, do you. Since we are, in some sense, family."</p>
<p>Jim watches Hugh carefully for any flicker in his expression. None: he still just looks like he accidentally brushed his teeth with lemon juice instead of water.</p>
<p>He might actually do that. Who knows what priests of the Magisterium get up to in their free time.</p>
<p>"Regrettably, this is a business matter, and not personal. I am here to ask if you have any knowledge of the New Danish art historian Margaret," he pauses, seems to steel himself, "Collins."</p>
<p>"Dr. Collins?" Jim says, covering the sudden ice in his stomach quite admirably. Let her have her maiden name, you <em> bastard</em>. But also, and more importantly: what does Hugh want with Maggie? "I ran into her more than once, in the course of my old career. Much of insurance deals with arts and antiquities, which is her particular specialty."</p>
<p>"The Consistorial Court received records of telegrams between you and her last night, scheduling a meeting."</p>
<p>"Ah, well. We often meet at a tea shop before or after work. Friendly outings, that's all it is."</p>
<p>"Hmmm," says Hugh. "Withholding information, are we, Agent?"</p>
<p>"I fail to see how my friendship with Dr. Collins is any of your concern, Father."</p>
<p>There's a moment of silence. Hugh's dæmon scuttles out from under the lapel of his coat, blinks at the anbaric light, scuttles back in again. Wilhelmina sits staunchly at Jim's ankle, unblinking, untwitching.</p>
<p>"In the telegram sent by Dr. Collins," and still there's that trace of disdain at her name, "she referenced the capital letter C and the initials GOB. Do you know what this refers to?"</p>
<p>"I assume you are going to tell me, Father."</p>
<p>"Are you being stupid?" For the first time, Hugh's façade cracks ever so slightly. His brow furrows, and when he speaks again, his voice is sharper. "There is only one thing it <em> can </em> refer to. Mrs. Coulter and the General Oblation Board."</p>
<p>"The only thing? Really."</p>
<p>"You answer to Interpol, which answers to the College of Bishops, Agent. That does not give you the right to poke your head into business where it does not belong, and certainly not on behalf of a woman who is in no way affiliated with the Magisterium."</p>
<p>"Right, right. Of course. And -- who does Mrs. Coulter answer to? Just out of curiosity."</p>
<p>"Don't push your luck, or it may run out."</p>
<p>"So soon?" Jim says. Apart from speaking, neither of them has twitched a single muscle; Hugh's hands folded together behind his back, Jim's hands in his coat pockets. Maybe they're both cut from the same bastard cloth. "I'd hoped it would last a little longer. I've had less than a year in my current position."</p>
<p>"No one is immune to sin." Hugh's pale eyes are nearly colorless in this light. "We do what we must to root it out."</p>
<p>"Of course." Jim pauses. "Well, I'm afraid we mostly spoke of personal and not political matters last night, Father. I hate to disappoint. But I'll tell you if anything political does come up."</p>
<p>"Hmm."</p>
<p>Hugh turns to go, looking only slightly thwarted. Jim hovers for a minute, mentally debating, and then says, "Your brother Owen told me to send you his regards."</p>
<p>But Hugh just keeps walking.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. Memphis.</b>
</p>
<p>There's a solid sixty seconds after Eliot stops playing his guitar where Parker and Hardison just stay in place, frozen.</p>
<p>Parker's brain is good at not turning to mush. She might get distracted, might pingpong around subjects fast enough to get seriously lost sometimes, but she's always thinking about <em> something</em>, even if it doesn't make sense to anyone else but Charlie. The times she has been unable to string two ideas together in a row, she can count on one hand. Less than one hand!</p>
<p>But add one more to the list, because her brain is fuzzing over with static, and all she can do is stand there numbly and watch poor Charlie try to catch her breath. She has oatmeal instead of brains. How are oatmeal and static the same thing? They're not. That's impossible.</p>
<p>Only it's not, because the inside of her head feels both jumpy-fizzy-anbaric like static <em> and </em> thick-clumpy-hot like oatmeal.</p>
<p>"         ?         !"</p>
<p>Nate is talking over the crew radio, and he sounds kind of urgent, but Parker can't understand what he's saying over the loud mush in her brain.</p>
<p>"         <em> !</em>"</p>
<p>Next to her, Parker feels Hardison shake himself, and he seems to become alert again, like his mind's just been stuffed back into his body again. Lucille chitters for a moment, clicks her teeth anxiously, and in half a second Hardison already has his hand in his pocket digging for her Rubix cube. He freezes again, though, when Nate garbles some more syllables through the radio, and this time Parker's brain catches up in time.</p>
<p>What he's saying is, "Help!"</p>
<p>Hardison looks at her and she looks at him, and they pack up Hardison's equipment and head out, telling Nate they're coming.</p>
<p>"He was calling Eliot, but there was no response," Hardison says. His voice is quiet and tight, odd. Kind of the same way Parker's stomach feels. "Do you think Eliot's okay?"</p>
<p>"Sure."</p>
<p>"We didn't know he could sing like that," Lucille says from her spot curled up in Hardison's backpack, her soft voice pitched just clear enough for Parker to understand.</p>
<p>"Neither did we." Charlie tucks herself under Parker's loose hair, nestles close to her pulse. "Neither did we."</p>
<p>She didn't cry tonight the way she did over the actual violin. But Parker thinks, now, that maybe the fiddle game was named correctly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>Adèle has run into Dr. Maggie Collins a few times in London, but only for the purpose of the Lifestyle section of the newspaper. Not that it isn't fun -- writing about Tartars' tradition of trepanning or the history of Fabergé eggs is interesting enough, and Dr. Collins is a pleasant conversationalist -- but Adèle has always, well. Wanted more out of life than the Lifestyle section. She wants to write something that matters in the political sphere, she wants to write something <em> important</em>.</p>
<p>When Dr. Collins asks to meet her for tea at a little out-of-the-way shop near Hyde Park, Adèle is, she thinks, understandably hesitant. But she packs her notebook and two of her favorite pens, and tries to look on the bright side.</p>
<p>"Thank you for coming on such short notice, Ms. Starminster," Dr. Collins says. She smiles warmly, though Adèle can't help but notice she keeps glancing away, like she's afraid of being overheard. "I appreciate your time."</p>
<p>"Oh, it's nothing, Doctor," Adèle demurs. "I hope everything is alright."</p>
<p>"Well, that depends on what you mean by 'everything'," Dr. Collins says.</p>
<p>A politician's answer. Adèle leans forward; she doesn't have to look at her dæmon to know that his wings are fluttering with interest.</p>
<p>"It's more of a favor that I'm asking for, than anything else," Dr. Collins continues. "Though I suppose finding it will be its own reward, if you're after the kind of stories I think you are."</p>
<p>"What kind of stories do you think I'm after?"</p>
<p>"The kind that are more interesting than Northern antiques."</p>
<p>Adèle's cheeks heat at that. But Dr. Collins only smiles, a faint distracted expression, and then folds her hands together on the table and waits for the waiter to bring the tea and disappear before speaking again.</p>
<p>The silence is only slightly awkward.</p>
<p>"I've lived in Brytain for four years now. Almost half a decade, and people still have to work to correct themselves from my married name. Bit of a gut punch, but I got used to it, because I had to. But I'm only the most recent divorcée living in London. There are two others in living memory who did so before me. Only two." She pauses, then says, "May I pour for you?"</p>
<p>"Oh, thank you. Much obliged."</p>
<p>"I say two," says Dr. Collins, carefully pouring, "but I guess I should say one. Pippa MacPhail passed away last year. She was -- well, by nature of who she married the second time, she was more connected to the Magisterium than I ever was. But she wasn't politically active, as far as I'm aware."</p>
<p>"No," says Adèle slowly. Where is she going with this?</p>
<p>"We never crossed paths much after she divorced Jim Sterling. Jim and my ex-husband worked in the same circles, you see, so the three of us were all fairly close. But Pippa preferred to stay home with her daughter." Dr. Collins smiles then, sadly. "Not that I can blame her."</p>
<p>"I was sorry to hear of her passing," Adèle says.</p>
<p>"So was I." Another pause. "You're thinking, what does this have to do with something that's actually interesting, and I promise you it's coming."</p>
<p>"Oh, I --"</p>
<p>"It's alright." Dr. Collins smiles again, a wry elder sister look. "You can get out your pen and paper now."</p>
<p>She should probably be embarrassed by how quickly she does so, but there are things more important than embarrassment.</p>
<p>"The only other woman who's been as publicly severed from her husband as Pippa and me, since the wives of Henry VIII," says Dr. Collins, quiet and careful and deliberate, "is a certain someone we're both familiar with. Right?"</p>
<p>Adèle can't quite breathe.</p>
<p>"Right. Well. Apparently having something like that in common means that she wants to be friends with me, or at least invent excuses to run into me at the Arctic Institute. I counted." Dr. Collins pulls out a little notebook of her own and opens it: on one page, its verso blank, neatly labeled under "run-ins" and separated by year, is a series of tally marks.</p>
<p>"Were they centered around specific dates, or --?"</p>
<p>"No. Or, they were centered around the times I was at the Arctic Institute specifically. Once or twice I'd see her at another museum or art gallery, but very rarely."</p>
<p>"So she -- she wanted to speak with you? Why?"</p>
<p>"I never asked. I never wanted to find out. Until now."</p>
<p>"Why now?"</p>
<p>"Because earlier this week, the last time I saw her at the Arctic Institute, she had Lyra Belacqua with her."</p>
<p>Adèle's hand is <em> flying </em> across the pages. "Her daughter?"</p>
<p>"So I learned."</p>
<p>"From her?"</p>
<p>But Dr. Collins only looks at her.</p>
<p>
  <em> Doesn't say where she learned L is C's daughter. Protecting someone? </em>
</p>
<p>"That in and of itself isn't a story," Dr. Collins says. "I don't actually have a story for you. All I have is a gut feeling, and a question. I think the answer will more than earn you a Pulitzer."</p>
<p>"What <em> is </em> your question, Dr. Collins?"</p>
<p>"My question is, what is Marisa Coulter doing in the General Oblation Board. And my gut feeling is that, because of whatever she's doing, Lyra Belacqua is in danger."</p>
<p>"I did hear that the girl's father, Lord Asriel, spoke at Jordan College a week ago," says Adèle. She flips back through earlier pages in her notebook. "My source said that he said any number of heretical things, something about other worlds, the Barnard-Stokes theory … and that the college is funding his further expeditions in the North." She stops and goes cold; she'd forgotten this part. "The Consistorial Court got involved. They sent Lord Boreal to Oxford to warn them."</p>
<p>"The Consistorial Court?" Dr. Collins's pale face drains paler. "So they might go after Lyra next, to get at Asriel."</p>
<p>"Do you think that has to do with Lyra being here in London?"</p>
<p>"I don't know. I might be able to find that much out, but only that much. I'm not connected with the Magisterium, <em> she</em>'ll never tell me about her work in it."</p>
<p>"Maybe not." Adèle taps the table with the end of her pen a few times, thinking.</p>
<p>"Not quickly enough, anyway. I'm no -- no journalist."</p>
<p>She stumbled a bit there. What was she going to say, instead of journalist?</p>
<p>But Dr. Collins recovers from her stumble quite well, and if Adèle hadn't caught it the first time, she wouldn't be able to tell she had ever slipped.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Five</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The role of Tony Makarios will be played by Tony Makarios in this alternate universe; Billy Costa will keep his book canon ending, hence the name of his dæmon being Hannah and not Ratter.</p>
<p>The name of West Virginia has been changed to West Christiania in keeping with the premise that the eastern United States is known as New Denmark in Lyra's World.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. Boston.</b>
</p>
<p>"Nate, we need to talk."</p>
<p>Eliot is standing at the doorway, not leaning on it like he does sometimes, but upright, rigid, the polar opposite of relaxed. At his side, Sarah is standing rock-still to match.</p>
<p>Nate can feel the tension coming off them in waves; it's echoing just as loudly as the struggling of a fly in one of Aoife's webs. He sits back in his chair and waves them over, and Aoife climbs back up his arm to settle on his shoulder.</p>
<p>Eliot lopes over and puts his hands on the back of the chair next to Nate, but he doesn't pull it out to sit.</p>
<p>"Well?" Nate prompts.</p>
<p>Eliot knows what he wants to say. Nate knows him that well by now, he can see the way Eliot chews on his words before saying them out loud: it shows in the slight flicker of his eyes, the slight tightening of his jaw, the way his weight doesn't shift. Eliot has something to say, but he doesn't actually want to say it. Which means it'll have something to do with Nate himself -- because Eliot never minds being the bad guy if it means he'll get the flack himself, but he <em> does </em> mind if other people catch it, even if they deserve to.</p>
<p>Cf: Sophie and the First David job; cf: Nate and the Maltese Falcon job.</p>
<p>Has he ever gotten mad at Parker or Hardison for getting in over their heads? There was the Iceman job, but Eliot never held a grudge over that one, even if he did bitch the whole time …</p>
<p>He's derailing.</p>
<p>But Eliot still hasn't spoken yet.</p>
<p>"Okay." Nate drums his fingers on the table, then pours three fingers of whiskey in a new glass. "You want a drink?"</p>
<p>"No."</p>
<p>"Well." He takes a sip from the glass. "I got all night, but we're getting up early tomorrow to head down to the mine, and I know you do better with a full sleep schedule."</p>
<p>"You don't have to be so damn cavalier, Nate." Eliot's voice goes harsh, the way it does sometimes when he's worried. "And anyway, who's the old man who needs his sleep, here?"</p>
<p>"Still you," Nate shoots back. "Your joints are worse than mine, some days."</p>
<p>Usually this is the point where Eliot engages despite his worry, starts bickering with him. But he doesn't; his glower just worsens, and his hands tighten on the back of the chair so much that his knuckles go white.</p>
<p>"Ask him," Aoife whispers, pitched quiet enough that even Sarah's sharp ears shouldn't be able to catch her words.</p>
<p>"Well, if we're not being cavalier anymore, you might tell me what we're gonna talk about." Nate taps the table in front of Eliot's chair, then nods at him. "Come on, sit. I'm all ears."</p>
<p>It takes a solid ten seconds before Eliot does pull out the chair and sit. When he does, it looks less like a concession and more like a surrender. His shoulders draw in and up, just enough to be noticed, and his hands fold together on the table in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, Nate can see Sarah curling up directly under the chair in such a way that she can keep watch on the rest of the room.</p>
<p>This isn't just normal worry, then. This is real nerves.</p>
<p>Then it's --</p>
<p>"About Moreau," Eliot says. The syllables pull from him with great effort, like he's hauling them out of a pit. "It takes a while to plan for this. I know it. I know these things take time. But whatever plans you're making, Nate, I'm not seeing them. I know that doesn't mean you're not makin' 'em, but …" He stops, his eyes flicker again; his mouth opens and closes, his throat works; he starts again. "But I'm not seein' 'em, and I need to. To know what's gonna happen next."</p>
<p>"No first plan ever survives contact with the enemy," Nate points out.</p>
<p>"Sun Tzu. Yeah, I know. But … Nate, you're doing this, right? You're actually working on finding Moreau?"</p>
<p>His voice is somehow both rougher and more fragile than before, like abrasion has made it brittle. For a moment, Nate wonders what it would be like if it snapped.</p>
<p>But he only puts a pin in that thought, and goes around it, like it never occurred to him.</p>
<p>"I am. I'm working on it, Eliot. But if we're gonna do this properly -- and I want to do it properly," he stresses, craning his head to try to catch Eliot's eye, "then we gotta make sure he can never do what he does ever again. You know me, Eliot, I don't go for a slap on the wrist. If I'm taking down Moreau, I'm taking him down so he can never get back up again. Which means suppliers, which means transport, which means finances."</p>
<p>"But I'm not seein' it," Eliot says quietly. He drags his gaze upward to meet Nate's, but only for a moment; his eyes drop again to the table like something in them is too heavy to sustain for long. "I'm not seein' it, Nate. And it's been months already. It ain't that I don't appreciate what else we've done in the meantime, I'm glad we did it, this is the sorta stuff we've been doing all along and that's worth something. But these six months the Italian gave you? That's too long a time." He drops his head into his hands now, then raises his head again with considerable effort.</p>
<p>What is going on inside his head? But Nate wonders that one only idly; he doesn't actually want to find out.</p>
<p>"It's not enough time. To go at Moreau, that <em> needs </em> months' worth of planning. But the kinds of things he does, to let him <em> keep </em> doing 'em for months …"</p>
<p>He trails into silence, and Nate lets that silence go for a bit, thinks on it.</p>
<p>This is important to Eliot. Matters to him, maybe not as much as Detective Bonano's trouble mattered to Nate last year, but matters to him.</p>
<p>Which means his team has skin in the game; and Sophie would chew him out to hell and back if he didn't treat Eliot's concern with the same weight as his own.</p>
<p>"Okay," Nate says finally. "I can move the timetable up a bit. After we finish with the mine in West Christiania, I'll get the ball rolling. And you'll start seeing some of those results."</p>
<p>"Right." Eliot straightens in his seat, pushes his hair back from his face. "So that mysterious Italian chick can stop buggin' you too, huh?"</p>
<p>"Sure, that too." Nate takes another sip of whiskey.</p>
<p>"You ever gonna let us see her, or what?"</p>
<p>"Oh, not if I don't have to."</p>
<p>"Uh huh. Sophie's gonna like that."</p>
<p>"What?" Nate turns fully to look at him, but Eliot is upright now, properly, and he aims an actual grin in Nate's direction even if it is sardonic, and he swings up out of the chair like he hasn't got a single care in the world, Sarah at his heels.</p>
<p>"You heard me."</p>
<p>"Oh, I am never gonna hear the end of this, am I," Nate mutters.</p>
<p>"Nope!"</p>
<p>He says it cheerfully, the bastard. But Nate can't help feeling a little better that some of the nerves have slid off Eliot again, and he can't help the smile that turns his mouth up in response, either.</p>
<p>"Well. Good talk."</p>
<p>"Yeah." Eliot pauses at the door again, and this time, he smiles. "Thanks, Nate."</p>
<p>"No problem."</p>
<p>The door swings closed after him, and Nate downs the rest of his drink all at once.</p>
<p>"Careful," Aoife says. She drops down from his shoulder to the table in one neat jump. "We don't want a hangover tomorrow, we need to be sharp."</p>
<p>"Yeah, yeah, I got it, last one of the night."</p>
<p>"<em>Bed</em>," she says. "You can do your intense broody thinking in a bed just as well as down here, and upstairs with the light off won't hurt my eyes as much."</p>
<p>"You're worse than Soph."</p>
<p>"You say that like it's a bad thing."</p>
<p>But he doesn't push Aoife further. He puts away the whiskey, and leaves the empty glasses in the sink, and heads upstairs, creaking all the way.</p>
<p>There's a thread loose somewhere. Why is Eliot so concerned about this? He gets his own little pet causes sometimes, but those have always been closer to home. The horse trainer: his old high school sweetheart. The fighting ring: an analogue for his hometown. Even the job with the country singer: the life he could have had, if he hadn't joined the army.</p>
<p>Maybe it's because Moreau moves money for terrorists. Eliot has certainly fought enough of those in his time. But Eliot isn't getting defensive about this the way he got with the others -- he's clammed up, he was actually <em> nervous </em> …</p>
<p>The loose thread flutters, bothersome.</p>
<p>What Nate wants to do is pull on it and see how it unravels. But he knows now that that isn't how to do things. Not correctly, anyway. If it's going to unravel, it has to do so on its own.</p>
<p>So he'll wait.</p>
<p>He's good at waiting.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>Parker likes London. It's a good place to be New Danish.</p>
<p>The reason they're in London, she doesn't like so much. Keller is using <em> kids </em> to move his art, and that's wrong in a way that makes every single bit of Parker lock up inside. She's gotten better at responding to that since the job in Belgrade two years ago, but still -- it's bad, it's wrong. And Parker is glad that Nate's on it, because she's now had two years' worth of experience in Nate's style of ruination for bad guys like that. Hurt an adult, he'll bring down the world around your ears. Hurt a kid? Welcome to Hell.</p>
<p>"Yeah. Hell," she says, and looks around the market, puffed up and pleased, Charlie on her shoulder with fluffed-up feathers.</p>
<p>"We're looking for goat bone marrow," Charlie reminds her. "For Hardison's book thing."</p>
<p>"Yeah."</p>
<p>"No pickpocketing until after."</p>
<p>"Killjoy."</p>
<p>"We've gotta actually <em> buy </em> the stuff, too."</p>
<p>"I thought you were Charlie, not Jiminy Cricket."</p>
<p>Charlie fluffs her feathers again and tugs on a lock of Parker's hair in revenge. "Focus."</p>
<p>And she does, because Parker is good at focusing. Only --</p>
<p>Only they're halfway to actually buying the marrow, counting out the heavy Brytish coins in her hand, when something catches Charlie's eye, and she swoops out to make a wheel as wide as she can before returning.</p>
<p>"Now who's getting distracted?" But she did manage to finish counting the right amount, even with only half a brain, and even now the man with a dull-eyed squirrel dæmon is bagging up the bone marrow.</p>
<p>"Gyptians," says Charlie. "In London."</p>
<p>"So? Gyptians are everywhere in Europe, that's not weird."</p>
<p>"No, they were huddled over a map and talking in low voices."</p>
<p>"So? Lots of people get lost in London. Not us, but. You know. Normal people."</p>
<p>"I got a feeling about them." Charlie's got her Insistent Voice on now. "One of 'em has a crow dæmon. I heard the others calling him King. Something's going on here."</p>
<p>"We gotta wait until the job is done. There's a kid who needs us." The man hands her the bagged-up marrow, and she heads back to the center of the market, stubbornly avoiding the group of Gyptians. "We can't afford to be distracted when there's a kid in danger."</p>
<p>She watches them out of the corner of her eye, though. The man with the crow dæmon is middle height and middle age, maybe a couple inches shorter than Eliot, with a bull neck and broad shoulders; next to him on the left is an older man, almost as tall as Hardison but older-looking than Archie, with a shimmering orange-red cat for a dæmon; on his right is a man maybe Nate's height, but closer to Parker's and Eliot's age, with a fierce-looking hawk on his shoulder. There are a few others, mostly with bird dæmons, but those three stand out the most. They look like they're arguing about something, but in the kind of way that means they've been arguing for hours.</p>
<p>There's a kid with them, a teenager, and his hawk dæmon is <em> restless</em>.</p>
<p>… Huh.</p>
<p>"Okay," Parker says. "Hardison still needs a couple days to finish. If these guys are still here then, <em> then </em> we'll talk to 'em. But the kid is priority one."</p>
<p>"I know that," Charlie says, cross. "You think I don't know that?"</p>
<p>She takes off in another circle, and Parker makes a face at her and goes to disappear in the crowd.</p>
<p>But the kid appears in front of her, almost crashing into her, and she stops short.</p>
<p>"A kid," he says. His dark eyes are wide. "Lyuba heard you talkin'. You said you was after a kid?"</p>
<p>Her mouth opens and closes. Then she hears Charlie call overhead, and she and the kid's hawk swoop down together.</p>
<p>"Damn it, Charlie!" she hisses at her dæmon. But Charlie only gives a wordless, smug chirp and tucks herself close on Parker's shoulder.</p>
<p>"What kind of kid?" the boy presses. "A missing kid?"</p>
<p>Parker's stomach drops.</p>
<p>"No," she says finally. "Not missing. We know where she is, we just gotta get her safe."</p>
<p>She's breaking her cover. She can't. She <em> can't</em>. The <em> team</em>.</p>
<p>But the hope in the kid's eyes trembles in front of her, and his hawk dæmon keens softly. She presses her head against her boy's.</p>
<p>"You got a missing kid?" Parker hears herself say.</p>
<p>"My brother. And -- and dozens of other Gyptian kids." He hesitates. "The Gobblers took 'em. That's why we come to London. To find 'em."</p>
<p>"Tony!"</p>
<p>The tall old man thumps over much more quickly than Parker would have expected. Up close, he's a lot more physically imposing, and Parker backs up, slips her radio comm into her ear as surreptitiously as she can, wraps her other hand around her taser.</p>
<p>The only other people on the radio are Sophie and Nate; Hardison is busy making book stuff, and Eliot is on a material run same as Parker. But Sophie-and-Nate is enough of a safety net.</p>
<p>For now, anyway.</p>
<p>"Tony, what have I said about going off on your own," the old man says. His voice is big and gruff just like the rest of him, but booming; he sounds like a great big oak tree. "Come along, now."</p>
<p>"We was just talkin'," the boy, Tony, protests. "She's got a kid in trouble, too. Only --" He stops, and visibly struggles to keep his composure. He grabs onto the older man's sleeve and then releases it immediately like the touch shocked him. "Only she knows where her kid is, Farder Coram. She <em> knows</em>."</p>
<p>There's a terrible pause.</p>
<p>"What?" says Farder Coram. He turns the full force of his gaze on her.</p>
<p>"Parker?" says Nate in her ear.</p>
<p>"Not <em> my </em> kid," says Parker. "<em>A </em> kid, that we're helping. But she wasn't -- taken. She was framed for a crime, and we're helping her get free."</p>
<p>"Parker, what are you doing."</p>
<p>"We're just talking," she tells both Nate and Farder Coram. "But you said your brother was stolen, Tony? By Gobblers?"</p>
<p>Nate and Sophie each draw a sharp breath.</p>
<p>"My little brother," Tony says. "Billy Costa. Ten years old. Come up to your elbow, maybe. Black curly hair, wears glasses. His dæmon's called Hannah, she usually takes a squirrel shape." He says it fast, like he's said it so many times he has it memorized.</p>
<p>"Usually," Parker says, echoing Nate. "She hasn't settled yet?"</p>
<p>"Billy's ten," Tony says, bewildered, like Parker shouldn't even need to ask. "<em>I </em> only just -- my Lyuba only just settled this month. Billy's too young."</p>
<p>"Is that a pattern?"</p>
<p>Parker asks just before Nate does, in her ear. His voice has gone tight and upset, the way it always does when there are kids involved. Parker's jaw tightens.</p>
<p>"Come to think of it," Farder Coram says slowly, "yes. We've spoken to all the Gyptian families with children taken, and all of them are about the same age, all with unsettled dæmons."</p>
<p>"Yeah, that's definitely a pattern," says Parker. "Did you go to the police?"</p>
<p>"Police wun't help us," says Tony. "They dun't care about any Gyptian kids. When's the police ever cared about Gyptians, anyway?"</p>
<p>"Well," Parker says carefully. "We've got to help our kid first. But --" She pulls out one of the Leverage business cards and fumbles it over to Farder Coram, who takes it. "Give us a couple days, then give us a call. We need to go back to New Denmark when we're done here, that's where our kid is. We gotta make sure she gets free."</p>
<p>"Of course," Farder Coram says gravely.</p>
<p>"We might be able to meet you in London, or not. But give that number a call anyway."</p>
<p>"We can't make them any promises," Nate warns.</p>
<p>"We may have found our children by then. I hope."</p>
<p>"I hope so too."</p>
<p>"May I have your name, miss?"</p>
<p><em> No</em>, every bit of Parker screams. <em> No you may not</em>. But she only smiles and says, "Alice. Alice White."</p>
<p>"Thank you, Miss White. I am Coram van Texel, of the Western Gyptians."</p>
<p>"Nice meeting you, sir." She sticks out her hand to shake the way Sophie showed her, and he does. "You take care."</p>
<p>"We will." Coram turns. "Come, Tony."</p>
<p>But Tony hesitates. He looks at Parker with a lost expression, hope mingled with disappointment.</p>
<p>Parker knows that look.</p>
<p>"Don't worry," she says quietly. "Give us a call. If you can't find your kids, we'll find them, and we'll get them back. Helping people is what we do."</p>
<p>"<em>Parker</em>," Nate starts, but Sophie hushes him, the first time Parker's heard her since she first slipped the radio on.</p>
<p>"It <em> is </em> what we do, Nate. That's the whole point."</p>
<p>"You'll find 'em?" Tony asks. His voice wobbles, and he scrubs at his eyes. His Lyuba chirps and rubs her face against his cheek, preens his hair with her hooked beak. "You'll find Billy?"</p>
<p>"Yeah," Parker says. She holds out her hand to Tony now. "If anyone can find him, it's us."</p>
<p>He shakes her hand, then hesitates. Parker remembers how Cory hesitated and then pulled Eliot into a hug, back at the mine in West Christiania, and looked happier for it; remembers how Cory is only a little older than Tony seems to be. But if Tony wants a hug, he'll take it. She won't force one on him.</p>
<p>He goes, and his Lyuba takes off from his shoulder and flies overhead. Charlie, on Parker's shoulder, watches them go.</p>
<p>"Okay, back to the hotel," says Nate in her ear. "<em>Now</em>."</p>
<p>Yeah, that sounds about right.</p>
<p>"You couldn't have given a heads up?"</p>
<p>"<em>Nate</em>," says Sophie in her Telling Nate Off Voice. "Parker, we'll talk at the hotel. Did you get the marrow for Hardison?"</p>
<p>"Yeah, I got that first."</p>
<p>"Alright, good. That's alright then." Now she's switching to her Smoothing Things Over Voice. "We're just finishing up here, we'll see you soon."</p>
<p>"Yeah," Parker says. She cranes her head up and squints at the overcast sky. "See you soon."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Six</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning for dubiously consensual dæmon touching in the first section of this chapter. If you want to avoid it, skip from when Eliot tells Moreau he has a gut feeling to the beginning of the next section.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Six Years Ago. San Lorenzo.</b>
</p>
<p>“You didn’t have to come personally,” Damien says. “You could have just wired the money.”</p>
<p>“And missed the chance to see you in person?”</p>
<p>The woman’s voice is silky smooth, almost a purr. Eliot immediately distrusts it.</p>
<p>Not that he really trusts anyone; not that he really relies on anyone except Damien, these days. Not that there’s anyone else he could ever deserve to rely on, not that he ever deserves trust and support from anyone --</p>
<p>Stop that.</p>
<p>The woman comes into the light. Eliot can smell the money rolling off her in waves: her perfume, jasmine and sandalwood, expensive for any person with a Brytish accent, and hers is cut-glass received pronunciation; her coat, finely spun cashmere, faintly wool-smelling from the light rain that must have gotten her just like it pattered over Damien’s party as they entered the building. A trace of the turquoise dye on her coat. The chamomile oil she uses in her dark and shining hair.</p>
<p>What he doesn’t smell, he sees. The glint of gold at her throat, the bright crystalline sparkle at her wrist. Whatever else this woman is, she’s money.</p>
<p>New money, too. She carries herself almost defiantly, like she’s daring the world to tell her she doesn’t deserve to wear anything so expensive, because some part of her still thinks she doesn’t.</p>
<p>It’s a very distinctive carriage.</p>
<p>“You’re taking a risk, coming here.” Damien slips his hands into his coat pockets. “Anyone could have seen you. Can you afford that?”</p>
<p>“I’m touched by your concern, Mr. Moreau.” The woman’s dark eyes slip sideways, toward Eliot. He stares back unblinking, and she looks away again. “Well, I won’t delay you.” She takes a lumpy packet out of her coat and crosses the room to Damien, who takes it and hands it to Eliot.</p>
<p>He opens it. Brytish money, in rolls of hundred-pound-notes. He takes one out and checks for fakes, then another, then another.</p>
<p>“So far, so good,” he says.</p>
<p>“You still don’t trust me?” the woman asks. She folds her hands in front of her and tilts her head to one side. “I’m hurt.”</p>
<p>Damien looks at Eliot then, his mouth in a crooked little not-quite-smirk. Eliot’s lips twitch in response, not quite returning it.</p>
<p>“You’ll find that I don’t trust easily,” Damien tells the woman. His eyes are still on Eliot, though, and Eliot feels warmth flush through him at the sustained eye contact. Only after Damien looks away does Eliot go back to checking for forgeries.</p>
<p>“All clean.”</p>
<p>“Excellent.” Damien claps his hands. “Well, then. We’ll see you in Belgrade at the end of the month.”</p>
<p>“Oh, no, I won’t be there in person. I have people who will be there to make the trade-off.” She hands Damien a card now; this close, Eliot can see the careful manicure on her hands, the wine-red nail varnish. “Doctor Cooper will be your primary contact from now on.”</p>
<p>“So San Lorenzo is safe, but Belgrade isn’t,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>The woman pauses, looks at him and then at Damien; she wasn’t expecting a piece of furniture to address her. But Damien only nods, so she turns back to Eliot, flicks her eyes up and down him, assessing.</p>
<p>“Of course not. That’s why I asked for children from Belgrade, specifically. I want them out of danger as soon as possible.”</p>
<p>Something about that doesn’t sound right. She doesn’t look like the kind of person who opens an orphanage for the sake of the actual children -- if anything, she looks like the kind of person who funds one just to have it named after her, and to have that name stamped on big shiny plaques on every surface in the building.</p>
<p>It doesn’t feel right, either. Something about this woman makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end; something about her monkey dæmon makes every one of Sarah’s muscles wind tight.</p>
<p>The dæmon hasn’t done anything. All he’s done is stay close to his human, and be still, and not say a single word, and not move a muscle on his face.</p>
<p>Sarah’s that way because she trained to be, they trained together, they learned it the hard way. It took time, it took torture.</p>
<p>What’s this woman’s excuse?</p>
<p>“Well, if there are no objections, then we shall proceed on schedule,” she says, brightly, and smiles at Damien. “Thank you so much for meeting with me.”</p>
<p>“The pleasure is all mine,” Damien returns.</p>
<p>She makes a little pleased <em> hm </em> sound and leaves. Eliot watches until she disappears from even Sarah’s keen sight, and only then turns to Damien.</p>
<p>“Something about this doesn’t add up,” he says quietly. “If she won’t risk going herself, why take kids from Belgrade? Wouldn’t it be easier if she just took kids from London, or Birmingham or Manchester? She’d have fewer travel expenses, and there wouldn’t be any language gap. The logistics on it don’t make sense.”</p>
<p>“I don’t judge my business partners, Eliot,” Damien says. Chides, rather, though his expression is gently indulgent. “If she wants to try being an international benefactor, to fly before she walks, who am I to tell her no? Especially when she’s compensating us so well for our efforts.”</p>
<p>“I know that. I just … I have this gut feeling, Damien. Something about this feels off somehow.”</p>
<p>“Come here,” says Damien.</p>
<p>He holds out his hand low at his side.</p>
<p>After a moment, Sarah slowly walks forward.</p>
<p>Damien’s fingertips barely graze the fur on her head. But Sarah feels it, and Eliot feels it, and he can’t suppress the shiver that runs through him in response to that touch: it feels like Damien’s fingers are skimming lightly over his lungs.</p>
<p>“You trust me, Eliot, don’t you?” Damien murmurs. He ghosts his hand over Sarah’s head again, and her ears twitch, once. Eliot shudders again. The feeling dances on a triple edge, pleasure and pain and fear.</p>
<p>“You know I do, Damien.”</p>
<p>“How much do you trust me?”</p>
<p>“Like no one else.”</p>
<p>“Like no one else,” Damien repeats. With the end of the call and response, he withdraws his hand from Sarah. She blinks, shivers once, and returns to Eliot’s side.</p>
<p>She doesn’t lean towards Eliot, and he doesn’t lean towards her.</p>
<p>“So trust me in this, too,” Damien continues. His voice is still quiet, still pitched softly. “If there was more that you needed to know, you would already know it.”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“You’re the best asset I have. Never forget that.”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>And that’s the end of it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>“-- don’t know what she was <em> thinking!</em>”</p>
<p>“What, just because she didn’t clear it with you first? Parker is an adult, Nate, we’ve fallen back on her judgment before and come out the other side, I don’t see how this is any different --”</p>
<p>“Right, right, weren’t you the one playing the guilt card earlier with the kid thing, on Keller? Now you’re gonna pretend there’s no guilt thing going on here?”</p>
<p>“Oh, please, like you’re <em> not </em> gonna go help them find their kids --”</p>
<p>“And drop everything we’re doing now?!”</p>
<p>Alec has managed to rearrange his worktable by the time Nate and Sophie actually come in the door, still bickering. Luke is all puffed-up feathers, just as indignant as Sophie; Aoife is inscrutable as ever; but Nate?</p>
<p>Nate is <em> pissed</em>.</p>
<p>“Oh, this is gonna go <em> so </em> well,” Alec mutters to Lucille.</p>
<p>“The hell’s going on?” says Eliot from the other room. Something bangs, and he curses. “Dammit, Hardison, what the hell did you put in here?”</p>
<p>“That’s for the book box, Eliot, and be <em> careful</em>, man, those are irreplaceable!”</p>
<p>“Then why’d you leave ‘em on the floor?!”</p>
<p>“Boys,” Nate snaps. “Enough.”</p>
<p>Alec turns toward him. “What, so, so you can bicker your ass off with Sophie in the hallway in front of God and everybody, and Eliot and I can’t have a civilized conversation in private?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, about that. Where’s Parker?” Eliot asks.</p>
<p>“Finding some bone marrow, I hope.”</p>
<p>“She got the bone marrow,” says Sophie. “She said she was on her way.”</p>
<p>“If she went to the market by the Limehouse Basin, it’ll be at least another five minutes,” says Eliot, finally coming into the room. He folds his arms tightly across his chest. “So whatever you’re exploding to say, Nate, you better let off a little of that steam now, ‘cause exploding on Parker is not gonna help your case.”</p>
<p>Nate subsides into sullen stewing silence, every inch of him deserving the alliteration. Sophie just huffs at him and takes off her coat, and comes into the room properly.</p>
<p>Between the two of them, they explain the bare bones: Parker met some people at that market, and all but promised to help them find their missing kids.</p>
<p>“She put her radio in first,” says Sophie. “She let us know what was happening as it happened. She was just as surprised as we were.”</p>
<p>“She should have talked it over with us first,” Nate insists. “This is not how we do things, Sophie, we have rules, we have rules for a reason. Do we even have the resources to find a group of kids like that?”</p>
<p>“We did it in Belgrade two years ago,” Eliot says. “I don’t see why we can’t do it again.”</p>
<p>“Because we have bigger things to worry about now, Eliot, which you know.”</p>
<p>Eliot’s jaw tightens. But he doesn’t say anything; he just moves over to stand by Alec, his arms still folded, a regular thunderstorm just by Alec’s head.</p>
<p>Something warm and pleasant curls up in Alec’s stomach at that, though: that Eliot will go stand by Alec when he’s not comfortable, that near Alec is a safe place for him to be. He busies himself with the last bit of tidying up, doesn’t comment on it, and Lucille slips down to the floor to be with Sarah.</p>
<p>They don’t say anything. But Lucille lifts one paw gently, slowly, to cover one of Sarah’s, and Sarah lets her.</p>
<p>“I don’t see why we can’t do both,” says Sophie. “If they have reason to believe their children are in London, after we’ve taken care of Keller we can split the crew. Some of us go back to Boston early to help A’Yan, some of us stay here to do reconnaissance for the missing Gyptian children, we all meet up back here.”</p>
<p>“This is the start of the final domino spiral,” Nate says tightly. “Keller’s the quickest way to Moreau, he’s the closest tied to Moreau’s personal life with the antiques, remember? Which means right after Keller, we need to go after his finances, hard, which means a financier, most of whom are gonna be in New Denmark and <em> not </em> Brytain, remember? We do not have time to stop and find a bunch of lost kids.”</p>
<p>“Listen to yourself, man,” says Alec. “Lost kids aren’t important? <em> Stolen </em> kids?”</p>
<p>Eliot draws a deep breath, but again, doesn’t speak.</p>
<p>“Stolen kids, Nate,” Alec stresses. “That’s hinky as hell, man. We gotta help.”</p>
<p>“We’re not discussing this until --”</p>
<p>“I’m here,” says Parker’s voice from the window. Alec turns just in time to see her flip through, a bag in one hand, Charlie flying in after her in a burst of color. “Here’s your marrow, Hardison.”</p>
<p>“Thanks, Parker.”</p>
<p>“I heard you yelling over the radio,” she says. She comes over to Alec’s other side, bracketing his shoulder just like Eliot. “You should probably take it out if you don’t want me hearing it.”</p>
<p>Nate has the grace to look a little ashamed. Not enough, in Alec’s opinion; but a little.</p>
<p>“I couldn’t really hear what Eliot and Hardison were saying until I got outside the window. But it sounded like they were agreeing with me. Were you?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, girl,” says Alec. “Hell yeah, let’s go save those kids.”</p>
<p>“Nate didn’t exactly give us all the details, though,” says Eliot. This close, the low growl of his voice almost resonates in Alec’s bones, though it’s way gentler directed at Parker than it was at Nate. “Can you tell us more about it?”</p>
<p>“There’s not much more to tell.” She swings up to sit on the table, neatly missing the container of soot. Alec is really, really glad Eliot made sure that thing has an air-tight seal. “It was a bunch of Gyptian kids who were taken, a couple dozen. They tried going to the police but the police wouldn’t help. The kids are all about the same age, around eleven or so.” She pauses. “Oh, and apparently none of their dæmons have settled yet. Which apparently is normal for them, but like, Charlie settled when we were twelve. But then, I’m not normal. So.”</p>
<p>“All the kids are eleven or twelve, with unsettled dæmons?” says Eliot.</p>
<p>“Yeah. They didn’t seem to know why they’d been taken, they didn’t say. All they said is that the Gobblers took them, whatever Gobblers are.”</p>
<p>“Gobblers,” repeats Alec. “That can’t be good.”</p>
<p>“And that’s the only lead we have,” Nate says. “That whoever took the kids are called Gobblers, and that they might -- <em> might </em> -- be in London.”</p>
<p>“All eleven or twelve,” says Eliot again.</p>
<p>There’s something off in his voice. Alec looks up at him, and sees -- blankness there in his blue eyes, a weird kind of closed-off blankness he’s never seen before.</p>
<p>It’s honestly terrifying.</p>
<p>“Eliot? You good?” he asks quietly.</p>
<p>Eliot looks down at him. His mouth opens and closes. His lip trembles briefly.</p>
<p>He speaks, but not to Alec.</p>
<p>“Parker and I will handle recon on the kids in London after we’ve finished helping A’Yan. Hardison’s better at numbers anyway, he’ll do fine on the financier.”</p>
<p>Nate studies him. It’s the kind of look he gets when he’s assessing a mark, or a client, and Lucille’s hackles rise at the look; she presses close to Sarah.</p>
<p>But Sarah moves away from Lucille, her ears go back almost flat to her skull, and she comes back to Eliot.</p>
<p>But she doesn’t touch him, and he doesn’t reach for her.</p>
<p>They’ve never touched each other as far as Alec’s seen, he realizes. The whole time Alec and Lucille have known them, almost three years now. They just -- don’t.</p>
<p>The sting of rejection lessens under that more puzzling revelation.</p>
<p>“Okay,” Nate says, breaking the silence. “Parker said the Gyptians were gonna try to find their kids first. Keller moved up the timetable today, so the auction piece will be done tomorrow, that’ll tie up what we need to get A’Yan safe. Then we all go back to Boston, repack for a trip, do recon on the financier long-distance while we work on getting the kids back. That work for everyone?”</p>
<p>“That’s a ten day round trip,” says Eliot. “Plus the auction tomorrow, plus a day in Boston to restock. If we don’t split the crew, that’s almost two full weeks of not being able to help those kids, Nate. You know every second counts when it comes to retrieving folks in a kidnapping, and you wanna take two full weeks?”</p>
<p>“No,” says Nate, “I don’t. But I’m not splitting the crew across two continents, Eliot.”</p>
<p>“For God’s sake, you don’t have to!”</p>
<p>It’s Sophie, agitated, turning her gloves over and over in her hands not unlike Lucille with a Rubix cube, Luke a puffed-up ball of feathers and stress on her shoulder. “We know people in London already, don’t we? We can ask them to help.”</p>
<p>“No,” says Nate. “I know who you’re thinking, Sophie, and <em> no</em>.”</p>
<p>“Why not?” she snaps. “To save your pride, Nate? Since when did pride take precedence over children?”</p>
<p>Nate throws up his hands. “Who’s to say he’s even going to help?”</p>
<p>“Who -- not -- <em> Sterling?</em>” Alec goggles for a moment, looks at Parker and Eliot, goggles again. “Sterling, who’s stabbed us in the back more than once just to get ahead?”</p>
<p>“Well, we did help him get that Interpol job last year,” says Parker. “Maybe he’ll be grateful and do what we ask.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, maybe, and maybe he’s gonna turn around and stab us in the back again,” Alec mutters.</p>
<p>“We know what he is,” says Eliot, quiet but firm. “That means we can predict at least some of what he’s gonna do, and we can take precautions. It’s less risky than just waiting two weeks to see what happens to the kids.”</p>
<p>“<em>And</em>,” says Sophie, triumphantly, “I happen to know that Tara will be in town as well. She can help, too -- she has more connections to the underworld than Sterling, surely together they must be able to work something out about these Gobblers.”</p>
<p>“Tara and Sterling in the same room? I guess that works,” says Alec.</p>
<p>All four of them stare at Nate then, expectant.</p>
<p>He sighs.</p>
<p>“Okay,” he says, “let’s go steal some allies.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. Oxford.</b>
</p>
<p>He’s studied the last answer so many times. The last question he ever asked the alethiometer, the last answer it ever gave, before he gave it to Lyra.</p>
<p>The girl deserves to have it. It came with her to Oxford; it was only right that she should leave Oxford with it. Perhaps she will learn to read it -- he certainly hopes so. But all he can do now is hope.</p>
<p>He’s studied the last answer so many times, and each time the books of reading have drawn him to the same conclusion: that Asriel will undertake a terrible task, that unknowable thousands will suffer for it, and that Lyra needs to go on a journey. She will have help, but she needs to go on her journey alone.</p>
<p>The witches have a prophecy about a child; he knows this. But to think that the child is Lyra --</p>
<p>To think that --</p>
<p>Charles interrupts his brooding with a cup of tea, set gently on his side table.</p>
<p>“Thank you, Charles,” he says, looking up.</p>
<p>“Don’t thank me, please, Richard.” Charles sits in his chair with a creak and a sigh; Serena slips out of Charles’s breast pocket and climbs up to perch on the winged back of the chair. Her little scaled body glimmers in the light from the fireplace. “It was only an excuse to fetch a cup for myself, anyhow.”</p>
<p>“Oh, certainly.” He takes a sip: it’s steeped perfectly, with just a little honey stirred in. Clover, he thinks. The perfect amount of sweetness to complement the chamomile. It’s his turn to sigh. “Well, let me thank you anyway.”</p>
<p>“You so rarely let me fuss,” says Charles. “And I don’t have Lyra to fuss over anymore, either. I don’t quite know what to do with myself.”</p>
<p>“You could fuss over the library.”</p>
<p>“Oh, and deal with all those students running about underfoot?” Charles huffs. “I don’t think so.”</p>
<p>“You say that like one of the last things Lyra did here at Jordan <em> wasn’t </em> lock you in your own study.”</p>
<p>They laugh together at that, a dry sad little chuckle, and neither of them has to say a word to perfectly understand what the other means: yes, Lyra was a savage little beast sometimes, but they loved her, and they still do.</p>
<p>“Are you still working over the alethiometer?” Charles asks, nodding at the book in his lap.</p>
<p>“I am.” He hefts the book up and onto the shelf again. Alicia shuffles her wings and croaks quietly, then settles back in place. “I’ve gone over it a thousand times, it seems like. But …”</p>
<p>“Have the answers changed?”</p>
<p>“Not changed. But -- there is something that I want to clarify.”</p>
<p>“I hope she doesn’t have to make that betrayal after all,” Charles says softly. “That’s been haunting me a bit.”</p>
<p>“No, not that part. The part where she has help.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“She still has to make her journey alone, but there will be others who help her along the way. I had previously thought it was just us, Charles, but now … now I’m not sure.”</p>
<p>“I hope she meets them soon.”</p>
<p>“Yes.” He reaches out, and Charles takes his hand, laces their fingers together gently. “Yes, my dear, so do I.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Seven</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Eleven Years Ago. London.</b>
</p>
<p>She knows how to play the long game. She’s been playing the long game for decades; hell, she was probably born playing the long game, if she casts it in the right light. She’s had so many different names, so many different lives. It’s fun to keep track, to carefully curate the personalities and tics and histories in her journals -- locked up tighter than even her favorite Gustave Doré -- but there comes a point during each con that she just plain becomes tired.</p>
<p>It isn’t that she doesn’t love playing a duchess, because who bloody wouldn’t. And it isn’t that she doesn’t love the family she’s acquired, because Aunt Margaret is delightful and less uptight than she had expected, more doting than she had hoped. It’s …</p>
<p>Well. It’s William.</p>
<p>She loves him. <em> She </em> loves him, she who chose Sophie for her new nom de plume as a grifter, she loves him even underneath the cover that is Charlotte.</p>
<p>And he says he loves her, <em> has been </em> saying he loves her for years now. But he only loves Charlotte, because that’s all of her that he knows.</p>
<p>It was easier to tolerate five years ago, when their marriage vows were new and the honeymoon phase was well underway. Now, five years into the marriage and seven years into the con, William still looks at her with stars in his eyes, he still fixes her morning Earl Grey with two sugars just the way that Charlotte likes.</p>
<p>Sophie likes elderflower, one sugar.</p>
<p>“We could cut and run, like we usually do,” her dæmon tells her. He’s chosen Luke as his new name, and she can tell he’s starting to chafe under the cover of ‘Edward.’ “But this is solid, and we might need to use it again. You never know when it’ll be useful to be a duchess.”</p>
<p>“You’re saying we need to give them a reason to disappear.” She draws her knees up further on the bed, wraps her arms around them and rests her chin on top. Luke flutters from his stand by the bed to her shoulder, and starts gently preening her hair.</p>
<p>“It’ll have to be a good one. But we can’t just ghost, not after putting almost a decade in. We need to do the work, Sophie.”</p>
<p>“Alright.” She strokes down his back with her forefinger. His starling feathers shimmer in the soft lamplight, just at the corner of her eye. “But in one month, we’re out of here. Promise?”</p>
<p>“Promise.”</p>
<p>William knocks on the door and then enters, sideways, the usual morning tray in his hands. His smile is wide and bright, adoring, same as always, and Charlotte returns it.</p>
<p>The Earl Grey is bitter on her tongue, despite the two sugars.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>“Just tell them.”</p>
<p>“You don’t think I want to?”</p>
<p>“No, I don’t.”</p>
<p>“I do. I just -- can’t.”</p>
<p>“Why not.”</p>
<p>“Because them knowing is dangerous, Sarah, and you know it!”</p>
<p>“Forewarned is fore-armed,” she shoots back. Her ears are laid flat to her skull, her pupils are narrow slits; she’s not hissing yet, but she will be soon, because he knows her, because he feels the same pent-up tension in his own chest. “We’re a <em> team </em> now, Eliot, which means Hardison watches over us and Parker gets us in and Sophie hides us and Nate puts it all together, we work better if <em> all of us </em>know the facts, keeping this from them is going to hurt them and you know it! We can’t do this alone!”</p>
<p>“We need to help the kids,” Eliot says. His lungs hurt, they feel raw, flipped inside out and open for the world to see. “We need to help the kids. That’s more important.”</p>
<p>“More important than knowing that <em> he </em> might still be helping <em> her </em> find kids?”</p>
<p>“We help these kids, we take him down, that solves both problems. After that, the rest of it doesn’t matter.”</p>
<p>She stares at him, and he doesn’t budge an inch.</p>
<p>“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she says. “If they find out we’ve been keeping this from them, how do you know it’s not going to blow up in our face?”</p>
<p>“You know by now I don’t care what happens to me.”</p>
<p>
  <span>“Obviously.”</span>
</p>
<p>It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does. But she doesn’t take it back, and he doesn’t fight her on it. Why should he?</p>
<p>Hardison comes in a moment later, dragging a hand down his face. Immediately Sarah snaps back to a more neutral expression, ears back up, tension forced out of her.</p>
<p>“Man, I know Sophie came up with it on the fly because Nate’s con fell through, but damn, I wish she coulda picked something a little easier to forge than an eighteenth century diary.”</p>
<p>Hardison stops, though, instead of elaborating on his complaint the way Eliot had expected. He frowns, concerned. “Everything alright, man?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, no problem.” It’s too easy to pull one off the growly jackass rack with Hardison; Eliot only hopes it’s enough. He still feels jumpy and wrong in his skin. “Why you gotta keep asking, dude?”</p>
<p>“Man, I just gotta check sometimes, okay?”</p>
<p>Lucille skitters in from the doorway; she’d been holding back for some reason, and now Eliot sees why, because she’s got a mess of anbaric wires in her mouth.</p>
<p>“<em>Fuck</em>,” says Sarah, with feeling. “You put that in your mouth?!”</p>
<p>“                                                   ,                                                     ,” Lucille says through her teeth.</p>
<p>“We <em> cannot </em> understand you with your mouth full,” says Sarah.</p>
<p>Lucille removes the wires carefully with one paw and sits up, shows them. “See? Rubber coatings on the wire. We’re all good. No anbaric shocks.”</p>
<p>“Lucille, girl, you figured it out?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, Alec, all we gotta do is rewire the dryer and we can make this thing go <em> turbo</em>.”</p>
<p>“Gimme some sugar,” says Hardison, and he and his dæmon do a little handshake of their own, shorter and not really a handshake at all, but as close to one as a human hand and an otter paw can manage. “Go ‘head, girl. Let’s get this show on the road.”</p>
<p>“You have your own handshake?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, man. Why not?”</p>
<p>Eliot’s mouth opens and closes. “No reason.”</p>
<p>No good reason, anyway.</p>
<p>It’s not a con, he thinks, as Hardison and Lucille head back into the work space they’ve curtained off from the main part of the hotel room. It isn’t a con to keep this from them. He’s been sitting on this secret for coming up on three years now, six if he counts the thing itself and not just who he’s keeping it from, but that’s all that it is. A secret.</p>
<p>And if he just keeps telling himself that, maybe it’ll stay that way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. Amsterdam.</b>
</p>
<p>There are probably better things she could be doing right now, but what the hell, there nearly always are. Half the fun of being a criminal is taking a look at should and shouldn’t, could and couldn’t, and rearranging them however she likes.</p>
<p>It was fun helping people with Nate’s little band of misfits. She even actually liked them -- or, to be more accurate, she liked all of them except Nate. But it was a side gig, and most of all, a favor to Sophie. So that’s been that for the better part of four months.</p>
<p>Whatever Sophie sees in Nate, good for her. But Tara is gonna steer clear of <em> all </em> of that.</p>
<p>She’s cruising the port for right now. Something about the steam ships coming in to dock, the few sailing ships bright and white against the blue of the sea, it’s just nice.</p>
<p>Also there are <em> so </em> many unaware tourists, and it’s fun to pick their pockets.</p>
<p>Usually they don’t turn around and look to find who picked their pocket, though.</p>
<p>“Aw, hey now,” says her most recent and most observant victim, in a lazy Texan drawl. “That ain’t nice. You’re infringing on my territory.”</p>
<p>“Why, you got some kinda patent on pickpocketing?” She cocks an eyebrow at him, holds up his wallet, opens it and makes a show of going through it. His eyes are too relaxed, his stance is too loose for him to be a threat. Why not have a bit of fun? “’Cause I don’t see one.”</p>
<p>“Seems you might have one, then.”</p>
<p>Ooh, <em> very </em> fun. “Maybe I do. Wanna have a drink about it?”</p>
<p>He huffs a dry, pleasant laugh. “Ma’am, I admire your style, and I thank you for the compliment. But if the game you’re trying to play is the one I think, I’m sorry, I don’t lean that way. Or any way. Points for the icebreaker, though, I ain’t seen that one before.”</p>
<p>“Well, far be it from me to force a gentleman,” she says. She tosses the wallet back to him, and he catches it neatly with one hand. “Serious about the drink, though. I don’t pass up a drink with a fascinating stranger if I can help it; personal rule.”</p>
<p>“That’s a very good rule,” he replies. He tilts his head towards his hare dæmon, who looks at Tara and Martin with a curious, open eye. “Hester, what do you think?”</p>
<p>“Talk of fascinating strangers,” Hester replies in a warm, husky smile of a voice. Her long ears twitch, and she sits up; including the ears, she nearly comes up to her fella’s waist. “Y’all know a good spot to get a drop of whiskey?”</p>
<p>“Do we ever,” Martin says. He’s small and downy, but somehow Tara doesn’t think these two are gonna underestimate him the way most people do; she thinks she catches the Texan’s eye flicking to the sharp little hooks of Martin’s beak and claws, the slight indents in the shoulder of Tara’s leather coat. Smart man. The smile tilting Tara’s lips up reflects in Martin’s next words. “Come along with us and we’ll show you just the spot.”</p>
<p>“Lead on, ma’am.”</p>
<p>“Call me Tara.”</p>
<p>“Tara. Lee Scoresby,” he says, and holds out his hand to shake.</p>
<p>His grip is strong, but not crushing. Tara keeps smiling. “Nice to meet you, Lee.”</p>
<p>“Pleasure’s all mine.” He nods toward Martin as they fall in step together. “Shrike, right?”</p>
<p>“Good eye.”</p>
<p>“Comes with the territory.”</p>
<p>“And what kind of territory includes both pickpocketing and birdwatching?”</p>
<p>“Aeronautics.”</p>
<p>“No kidding?”</p>
<p>“Spend most of my time in the air or hustling for balloon gas, which don’t come cheap. A man’s gotta have a diverse skillset to get by these days.”</p>
<p>They continue in that vein, mostly Tara gently pulling threads and cheerfully listening to them unravel, as they continue to her current-favorite hole-in-the-wall bar. As they enter, though, the barkeep who doubles as the landlady stops Tara.</p>
<p>“You got a telegram, Ms. Carlisle.”</p>
<p>Her lawyer cover. Not --?</p>
<p>“Thanks,” Tara says, and accepts the thin telegram paper, passes the woman a twenty-kroner note as well. Never hurts to keep the staff happy …</p>
<p>
  <em> Come to Mayfair ASAP. We need you. S. </em>
</p>
<p>Sophie. In trouble? She’s never this terse otherwise, even if telegrams do charge by the word.</p>
<p>“Well, damn,” she says under her breath.</p>
<p>“Everything alright?” Lee asks. He’s moved far enough away not to be able to read it, his hands in the pockets of his long coat, his hare dæmon at his heel looking just as politely curious as he is. “I hope it’s not too serious.”</p>
<p>“Oh, you know. Plans changing on the fly, as they do.” She folds up the flimsy and tucks it in her own coat pocket. “I need to book a trip across the Channel, that’s all.”</p>
<p>“Can I offer you a balloon ride?”</p>
<p>She laughs. “You’re kind, but no. Unless you’re going the same way?”</p>
<p>“Unfortunately not,” he says ruefully. “I’m headed up North.”</p>
<p>“Well, then.” She slides into her usual bar seat, pats the stool next to her, and the landlady sets out a bottle and two glasses. “Let’s have us a quick drink and then we can go our separate ways.”</p>
<p>“Here’s hoping they don’t stay separate for too long,” he says, sliding in too. “It ain’t every day I make a new friend by getting my wallet stolen.”</p>
<p>“Maybe you just aren’t moving in the right circles,” she tells him.</p>
<p>“If only you knew,” he says, and clinks their glasses together.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>“Dammit!”</p>
<p>Another dish broken because her bloody fingers can’t remember how to work. She shakes her hands, wipes them on her coveralls, and reaches for a rag to pick up the shards with.</p>
<p>“Mum, I’ll clean it,” says Tony from the other side of the galley, and before she can think her mouth automatically spits out a denial. Bad enough she’s gone all sharp around the edges, bad enough she can barely get a wink of sleep at night anymore, but now her eldest son feels like he needs to coddle her --</p>
<p>That’s not fair to him. She’s his ma, and he’s a man now. But only just a man, not even a full fortnight yet, and here he is, asking <em> again </em> to join Benjamin and the others to go out on a raid. Like it en’t dangerous enough what they’re doing -- like she en’t worried out of her mind for one son already!</p>
<p>“The answer is <em> no</em>, Tony!”</p>
<p>There’s a clatter of boots, thumps from overhead on the deck. Asher, above, shakes out his wings and bows to John Faa’s Opal. Maggie feels the difference in Asher right away, the slight shuddering expectation, and it tenses her up even more. But it isn’t just John Faa come to see her, it’s Farder Coram, it’s Benjamin, it’s <em> everyone</em>, it feels like, and she can’t -- she can’t just --</p>
<p>She’s not fit to see people, and they would probably all go away again if she sent them off, because every one of these men respects her, she knows. She <em> could </em> send them all away, and hide from the world, if she wanted.</p>
<p>But it doesn’t matter if she’s not fit to see people, because what if they have good news? What then?</p>
<p>But it’s only the men who came. They brought no children.</p>
<p>She bites her lip, straightens. Tuns halfway to face them as they approach the galley.</p>
<p>John’s eyes flick from her face to her hands to the smaller shards still on the floor, then back to her face. “Can I help?”</p>
<p>“You can find my son.”</p>
<p>“We were so close though, Maggie,” says one of the others. “If you woulda seen.”</p>
<p>“We never shoulda left Oxford,” she tells them. It’s all she can think. It’s the only thing that makes sense. The bitterness inside her surges until she can taste it in the back of her throat. “He’s probably still there. Lost. Lookin’ for his ma.”</p>
<p>“He’s not in Oxford,” Benjamin says from where he’s lingering in the passageway. “He’s in London. And Gobblers took him.” He approaches, leans his hands on the galley counter; the other men step back to form a semicircle. Benjamin continues, calmly: “And we'll find ‘im.”</p>
<p>“And if you’re all wrong?” she asks the group, feeling bitter, feeling brittle.</p>
<p>“We’re not wrong,” says Farder Coram.</p>
<p>He holds out a cloth bundle.</p>
<p>Dark leaf green with little diagonal sunflower-yellow striped squares in, wool stockinette with the hems done short and ribbed, hand-washed and carefully sun-dried so it would stay soft.</p>
<p>She takes it with trembling fingers and brings it up to her nose, inhales deeply, and -- yes, she can smell the lavender mixed with the lye, faint but there, the lavender soap she used to wash it special so Billy could wear his favorite sweater on his big brother’s Welcoming Day.</p>
<p>A sound comes out of her that can’t really be human, but she can’t care about that. She can’t care about the man who might have been her father, and the man who promised to be her eldest son’s guide, and the western king, all here to watch her go from brittle to breaking into a thousand little pieces.</p>
<p>Billy was here, and they were so close, but not close enough. And now he doesn’t even have his favorite sweater.</p>
<p>“Ma …”</p>
<p>Her ears are almost too fuzzed with static to hear Tony. She doesn’t notice that she’s moved into the little side passage between the galley and the bunks, that she’s leaned against the wall because her legs have turned into water. All she notices is the burning in her eyes and in her lungs, the breathless wordless grief and fear.</p>
<p>Footsteps approach, heavy. Warm, broad, callused hands cover hers, engulf them, and her eyes focus just enough to see the silver ring on one finger in the elegant shape of a crow.</p>
<p>John’s forehead rests against hers lightly, the faintest brush. They look up at each other at the same time. He’s taller than her, but he’s ducked down enough to meet her where she is; this close, she can feel the warmth of him, more than just where their hands touch. Without thinking (she can’t think), she leans close again, and he meets her again, his dark eyes steady and strong. His hands squeeze hers.</p>
<p>“We’re going to get him back.” His voice is deep, and just as warm as his hands, and just as strong as his eyes.</p>
<p>“Please,” she begs. She wants to believe him. Needs to believe him. “Please.”</p>
<p>Faintly she hears talking down the passageway. But she can’t comprehend the words; she can barely comprehend the gentle steadfast strength in front of her.</p>
<p>Her boys might have had fathers, but they never had a pa, not in all the sixteen years that have gone by. But here is -- John is --</p>
<p>She can’t think. Her mind won’t allow her to fit the pieces together long enough; they just can’t hold.</p>
<p>But John is still holding her hands, and she remembers what he said on the riverbank at Oxford, about how she had been a good and strong mother to Billy and that was why someone must have taken him: because if he’d only been lost and not stolen, he would have come back, because she’d given him the strength to do it.</p>
<p>She doesn’t feel strong. She hasn’t felt strong in a fortnight. But her hands aren’t shaking anymore, with John holding them.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Eight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The capital of New Denmark has been assigned to Philadelphia, rather than Washington DC.</p>
<p>Brief oblique discussion of child endangerment during both sections set in Present London, canon-typical of His Dark Materials.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. Mid-Atlantic.</b>
</p>
<p>"Tara will be making contact with Sterling about now," Sophie says. She tucks herself further into her coat, pulls up her scarf with one gloved hand, shivers against the wind. "They'll find something, Eliot. You don't have to worry."</p>
<p>"Who says I'm worried."</p>
<p>But he is, Parker thinks from her spot higher up, on the roof of the main cabin. Eliot is worried like he was before he had to sing. Now that she has that frame of reference, it's hard not to see the similarity: the tightness of his shoulders (his coat straining across them), the not-seeing-anything (his hair loose and flying in the wind and getting tangled over his eyes, not controlled under a hat or in a hair tie). If she dropped down behind him now, he probably wouldn't even notice. Even Sarah wouldn't: even from here, Parker can see what Hardison has called Sarah's thousand yard stare. They're barely focused on Sophie and Luke in front of them.</p>
<p>"Oh, nobody," Sophie is saying. Parker strains her ears to hear better over the roar of the wind and the whoosh of ocean spray around them. "Nobody's saying you're worried. Except you."</p>
<p>"I'm not. And don't -- don't push at it, Sophie, I ain't one of your marks."</p>
<p>"No," she says. "You're not. You're                             ." A big wave splashes up at the front of the ship, all foam and spray and <em> loud</em>, and Parker loses the last part of the sentence.</p>
<p>"What?" says Eliot. His shoulders go even tighter.</p>
<p>"You heard me."</p>
<p>"I actually didn't, though."</p>
<p>"The brain thing," Parker whispers. "Sophie, say it again."</p>
<p>"You're part of the crew," Sophie says. "Which means we reserve the right to be worried about you when something is wrong."</p>
<p>"Nothing's wrong, Sophie, okay?" He looks away, towards the water, and Parker traces the line of his profile with her eyes. His eyebrow is low and straight and pulled tight over his eye, his mouth is just as tight, everything in him is tighter than the most secured rigging in the world.</p>
<p>Except that the best secured riggings have flexibility in them, enough give to breathe in. This whole time she's been looking, Eliot hasn't breathed -- proper breaths, not just the short shallow ones it takes to keep functioning -- once.</p>
<p>She can fix a too-tight rigging. She's never fixed a too-tight Eliot before.</p>
<p>"Well, I'm not going to force you, Eliot," says Sophie. "But if you do ever want to talk about it, I'll be there to listen."</p>
<p>"Thanks, Sophie, but I'm good."</p>
<p>Eliot stays put, so it's Sophie who walks away, making a beeline for the inside of the main cabin. Maybe she's wet all over from the salt spray and wants to change clothes; Parker remembers her being fussy about it on the way over, and thought she might have gotten used to it by now, but maybe some people just stay fussy and particular no matter what. Sophie's particular about a lot of things, personal comfort being one of them. It's one more way she counts as normal. Parker doesn't get it -- since when has personal comfort ever been something she's been able to control beyond the occasional stabbing -- but she won't begrudge Sophie her normalness in this.</p>
<p>No, she's concerned with Eliot, who is still staring out at the passing ocean and looks like he's been standing in a rainstorm.</p>
<p>Carefully, Charlie spotting her for footholds, Parker climbs down the slippery metal of the cabin and comes up to stand beside Eliot, bumping up close to his shoulder.</p>
<p>He doesn't jump, but from the weary scowl on his face, it looks like the only reason for it is he's too cold and tired to jump.</p>
<p>"Dammit, Parker," he says, and even his <em> voice </em> is tired.</p>
<p>"Come make chocolatl," she says. "I tried earlier with the mix they had in the kitchen --"</p>
<p>"Galley. On a ship it's called a galley, Parker."</p>
<p>"Right, the kitchen. Anyway it didn't taste as good as yours does. Can you make me some chocolatl the good way like you always do?"</p>
<p>"I ain't a line cook, Parker, you can't just say 'I want this or that' and expect me to just hop to it."</p>
<p>"Please?"</p>
<p>In other circumstances, she thinks, Eliot would grump and grumble some more, the way he always does. But for whatever reason he's wound up so tight, he doesn't grumble this time. Instead he just makes what Parker thinks is a sigh (the ocean roar keeps swallowing up all the quieter noises), and he turns toward the main cabin.</p>
<p>"This is a one time thing," he says. Sarah, her fur flat to her body from the saltwater spray, sticks close to Eliot without touching him, like always. Parker shifts inside her coat and makes room for Charlie inside the hood of it, and follows, satisfied.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>"Tara Cole," Jim says. "I didn't expect to see you again so soon."</p>
<p>"Yeah, well, duty calls." She shrugs, and her dæmon on her shoulder shuffles his wings in a similar motion. He's a ferocious little thing, Jim thinks; there are probably hundreds of people who have made a terribly incorrect assumption related to that size and paid a dear price for it. "Or, Sophie called."</p>
<p>"Sophie Devereaux?" Now that's a name he hasn't heard in a bit. "Not that I don't expect Sophie to visit London at any point, but what's going on here that she needs your help with?"</p>
<p>"Not just mine," she says, leaning back in her chair, crossing one leg over the other. "Yours too."</p>
<p>"Really."</p>
<p>"Yeah, I had the same reaction. But she had to leave with --" she waves her hand carelessly "-- the rest of 'em, they had stuff that needed doing in two places at once. So she called me. And you, because apparently you might have access to intel they need."</p>
<p>He has a sneaking suspicion that he knows what she's about to say, but hell, he'll ask anyway. "What about?"</p>
<p>"There's some kids that need help." Her voice pitches quieter; she reaches for her teacup and takes a drink, or pretends to, to disguise her words; Wilhelmina instantly moves a little closer, strains her ears to hear better. "Gyptian kids, not local, that were stolen from their families and taken here to London."</p>
<p>Ice trickles down his spine. "Stolen children?"</p>
<p>He says it just as softly: the words are ash in his mouth. Tara's mouth sets in a thin line, and she nods. She sets her teacup back on its saucer with a faint clink, but her hand doesn't leave it. Instead her fingers tighten on the porcelain handle and then loosen again, like she wants to break it but knows she shouldn't. It's easy to see now that what looked like carelessness in her mannerisms before was actually stress.</p>
<p>Tara Cole, former New Danish government agent and profiler, <em> stressed</em>.</p>
<p>"Yeah. Kids."</p>
<p>"Fuck," says Jim.</p>
<p>"Yeah."</p>
<p>"And they think -- Sophie, Nate -- they think I could find out information for them."</p>
<p>"Well, between the two of us, I think we can look on both sides of the law to find out something." Her dæmon chirps softly, and she puts her hand on his head, ruffles his feathers slightly. "We did okay together on the egg job, we should be alright here."</p>
<p>"We'll have to be more than just alright," Jim says. His voice rasps in his throat, but he doesn't clear it. He buries his hand in the fur at the scruff of Wilhelmina's neck, and she leans into him, gently noses at his hand to comfort. "If there are kids at stake, we need to be more than just alright."</p>
<p>"Semantics. Whatever." Tara takes an actual drink from her cup this time. "Point is, we can work together and not kill each other, and we can help."</p>
<p>"Right."</p>
<p>He finds that he wants to go and tell Maggie, Maggie who talked to the journalist, Maggie who is still worried over Lyra Belacqua -- another child she suspects might be in danger.</p>
<p>A thought nudges at him, black and dripping and sickly, an awful thought. What if the two things are connected? -- what if Marisa Coulter, untouchable by anyone, is in the middle of it all?</p>
<p>What if she is, and he can't find out what they need in time to help these children?</p>
<p>(Lyra Belacqua, who is Sam's age -- or, Sam <em> would </em> be her age, if --)</p>
<p>Fuck.</p>
<p><em> Fuck</em>.</p>
<p>"You can move in circles that I can't," Jim says slowly. "The upper crust that isn't in the Magisterium itself, the people that fancy themselves patrons of the arts and fund all the experimental theology."</p>
<p>"Why can't you move in those circles?"</p>
<p>"Magisterium politics. Interpol … is and isn't official. I'll pull what strings I can, but if you can get into some of those back rooms, that will be helpful." He pauses. Then, more carefully, the words scratching like rust in his throat, "See if you can get close to Marisa Coulter. She might have information we need."</p>
<p>Tara's eyes flash with recognition. "Why her?"</p>
<p>"Call it a hunch." He takes a sip of his now-cold tea. "Maggie Collins asked me to find information on her, and I think this may be related."</p>
<p>"Maggie Collins? Nate's ex? She's in London, then?"</p>
<p>"Yes."</p>
<p>"Hopefully her taste in men has improved since the last time I saw her."</p>
<p>Jim blinks, tries to look as impassive as possible. Prays to the Almighty that the warmth on his cheeks isn't visible through his beard. "I wouldn't know."</p>
<p>Tara quirks a little smile. "Well, it doesn't matter, I guess. She was pretty good about keeping her cool when it came down to it -- except when it came to the bomb scare, but then I guess nobody's perfect. You think she'll do okay with this?"</p>
<p><em> I want Maggie as far away from this as possible</em>, Jim wants to say. <em> I want her to be safe and far, far away from all of this</em>. But the words tie themselves into a knot in his throat. He's never said them out loud before; if he does, Maggie deserves to be the first one to hear them.</p>
<p>"We should probably go talk to her in person first," he says instead.</p>
<p>"Well." Tara drains the last of her tea. "Shall we?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. San Lorenzo.</b>
</p>
<p>"He was supposed to make contact when his ship landed in Ostia."</p>
<p>"The ship was scheduled to arrive today, sir. The telegram might still arrive."</p>
<p>"<em>Might </em> doesn't cut it."</p>
<p>Chapman's mouth closes, and his dæmon bows her head, subservient as always. She might be in the shape of a jackal, but she's always been much more of a dog. If Damien had ever felt inclined to say so, he'd have told Chapman years ago that his dæmon settled wrong. But honestly? He's never cared enough to give it more than a passing thought. So long as he can muzzle Chapman or point him in whatever direction he likes, it doesn't matter at all.</p>
<p>An old annoyance itches at the back of his skull, but he doesn't voice that, either.</p>
<p>"Keller has never been anything less than punctual before now. If he is late, he has a reason." Damien drums his fingers on his desk, then takes the decanter and pours himself another glass of whiskey. "Discover that reason."</p>
<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
<p>Marcelle slides out from beneath his jacket and watches with him as Chapman leaves. They pause, silent, and then go back to the papers on the desk.</p>
<p>"We need to contain Flores," Marcelle says in her soft voice. "He is more trouble than he's worth."</p>
<p>"I'll leave that to Ribera for now."</p>
<p>"Only for now."</p>
<p>"We have Atherton to deal with first." He shares a sidelong glance with her; she loops her way down his arm and coils neatly on the desk, her brown and tan patterned body sleek and nearly gold in the lamplight. He strokes one finger down her neck, lingers at the slight curve just behind her head.</p>
<p>"You think Atherton will get it done in time?"</p>
<p>"He had better. I hate to miss a deadline."</p>
<p>"If they do replace Marisa," she says, lingering slightly over the esses, "who do you think they'll put in instead?"</p>
<p>"Hm. Perhaps that MacPhail we've heard so much about."</p>
<p>"Easier to press the buttons on that one."</p>
<p>"But perhaps harder to contain."</p>
<p>"Best not to leave it to chance."</p>
<p>"We'll have to go to Philadelphia in person, then, to supervise."</p>
<p>"It's been a minute since the last time we visited New Denmark." She rests her head on the back of his hand, her pulse light and steady at his wrist. Something wistful enters her voice. "Do you think <em> he </em> will be there?"</p>
<p>Damien pauses, takes a moment to simply breathe and think.</p>
<p>"If he is," he says at last, "we cannot expect him to come back to us. And we must prepare for the possibility that if he does come back, it will be to stop us."</p>
<p>She does not have to say what they are both thinking. So she only curls just a little closer to his arm, and they go back to their work.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>Adèle doesn't know what to expect the second time Dr. Collins invites her to tea, but she definitely doesn't expect to see Agent Sterling of Interpol and a New Danish woman she doesn't recognize at all.</p>
<p>They're all about the same age, which is to say, about fifteen years older than Adèle. And every one of them, she notices, her own Émile going still on her shoulder, has a predator for a dæmon.</p>
<p>Dr. Collins's is a garter snake, and she knows him, or sort of. And anyway, Adèle looked up garter snakes; they're social animals and hardly ever dangerous to anything bigger than a field mouse. But a bird of prey, if small, and a clouded leopard?</p>
<p>Good <em> night</em>.</p>
<p>"Ms. Starminster, thank you so much again for coming," says Dr. Collins. She gestures towards the other two. "May I introduce Agent Jim Sterling of Interpol, and Tara Carlisle. Jim, Tara, this is Adèle Starminster. She's the journalist I've been speaking with."</p>
<p>"A pleasure, Ms. Starminster," says Sterling, and he shakes her hand. "Tara is an associate of ours who will be able to assist in our … endeavor."</p>
<p>"An associate?" Adèle can't help but ask.</p>
<p>Tara smiles; something in Adèle's stomach flutters at the brightness of that look.</p>
<p>"Did you hear about the Fabergé egg that was recovered in Muscovy last year?"</p>
<p>"I wrote an article on it," Adèle says immediately. She flushes, just as immediately embarrassed, but Tara only gives her a softer, considering look and then nods. "Dr. Collins had been framed for the theft, but Agent Sterling recovered it and was able to clear her name," Adèle manages to continue.</p>
<p>"Yes. Well, he had a bit of help."</p>
<p>"That kind of associate," says Sterling.</p>
<p>They all sit, and for a moment there's quiet.</p>
<p>"What we're doing …" Adèle fumbles, stops, tries again. "What we're doing, looking into this, isn't exactly legal."</p>
<p>"Never stopped me before," says Tara.</p>
<p>"It's some kind of open secret, what -- <em> she </em> -- does for the Oblation Board." Adèle digs out her notebook and flips it open to the most recent page. "All the sources I've talked to, they all say that the people in her inner circle talk about it, but they still never outright call it what it is. They call it …"</p>
<p>There. She puts her thumb on the words, and Émile flutters down to land beside them, to mark the spot for her.</p>
<p>"Intercision," she says, looking back up at the others. "Or the 'Maystadt process'."</p>
<p>"Nothing clearer?" asks Sterling.</p>
<p>"No. I've tried to get into those circles, to ask questions myself, but …" She chews her lip for a moment. "I'm a journalist. Not upper crust enough for them, and anyway, they would get suspicious."</p>
<p>"Is that everything you've learned?" asks Dr. Collins. Her hands are folded on the table, the knuckles white, tense.</p>
<p>Adèle hesitates. She looks at Émile, and he opens and closes his wings briefly, a wordless encouragement. "Well, there's one more thing. But it's silly."</p>
<p>"Tell us anyway," says Sterling.</p>
<p>"The initials, General Oblation Board. It's given them a nickname. They don't use it often themselves, but sometimes other people refer to them as Gobblers."</p>
<p>Tara goes still. Dr. Collins and Sterling both go dead white.</p>
<p>"Jim," says Dr. Collins. She sounds -- and looks -- like she's about to faint clean away. "Jim."</p>
<p>"I know," says Sterling.</p>
<p>"Lyra," says Dr. Collins, distressed.</p>
<p>"I know."</p>
<p>"She might be able to help us," says Tara. She's already recovered from whatever shock has affected the three of them, her expression calm and grim, though Adèle can't help but notice her dæmon is still gripping her shoulder tight enough to pierce her leather jacket with his talons. "If the kid is living with Coulter, she might be able to access information."</p>
<p>"Papers," says Adèle. She shares a glance with Émile, and he flits away from the paper in time for her to start scribbling notes down. "If we could just talk to Lyra, establish her as a source -- but we'd have to get her away from Coulter -- if only I could get an invite to that party she's holding. I thought of trying to go as a plus-one for one of the financiers or something, but …" She grimaces, and the two women both nod in understanding, still tense.</p>
<p>"I can get you in," Tara says. "No creepy old dirtbags required."</p>
<p>"What? -- How?"</p>
<p>"Better if you don't know," says Dr. Collins. "Tara, could you --?"</p>
<p>"Yeah, Maggie. Of course."</p>
<p>"And --?"</p>
<p>"They're the reason I came, Mags. Of course I'll let them know."</p>
<p>Dr. Collins lets out a breath, and some of the tension in her shoulders goes with it. "Thank God."</p>
<p>Okay, <em> that's </em>not strange at all.</p>
<p>"What exactly is going on?" Adèle asks. "Why did -- what does it matter if they're called Gobblers?"</p>
<p>Silence piles on, thick and dreadful, stifling. Tara's face closes off, and Dr. Collins looks down and away, tense again, her eyes glazing with -- with <em> tears</em>.</p>
<p>It's Sterling who breaks the silence, still deadly pale, his voice raspy and rusted over.</p>
<p>"Children," he says. "The Gobblers steal children."</p>
<p>Adèle can't breathe.</p>
<p><em> Intercision </em> and <em> Maystadt process </em> are far more frightening terms now, all the more so for their unknown meanings.</p>
<p>"Well," she says, and tries to force the shakiness from her voice. "I guess we should go to work."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Nine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning for non consensual dæmon touching as depicted in episode 2 of His Dark Materials, at the end of the first Present London section. If you want to avoid it, skip from when Adèle and Boreal enter the elevator to the next section.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>It's the first time Adèle has ever had, if not friends, then a team. The other people in her office just tell her to keep her head down and stick to Lifestyle -- <em> unless you want to go back to the advice column</em>, they say, laughter in their voices, forcibly reminding her of when she was fresh out of university and still too young.</p>
<p>She feels young now. But none of them make her feel stupid for it, and she can tell from the looks they give her, the way they speak to her, that they actually take her seriously. It's galling that this is such a relief, when what it <em> should </em> be is the bare minimum. But it's nice to have one less thing to worry about.</p>
<p>Dr. Collins, or Maggie, as she's insisted on being called, is helping Adèle pick out her dress for the party. They have a similar style, it turns out: soft pastel colors, gentle curving silhouettes. It's nice. Adèle remembers their first tea together the other week, how she'd briefly compared Maggie to an older sister, and holds onto that idea now.</p>
<p>"Tara's a bit of a chameleon," Maggie is saying. She picks up a blue dress, then sets it down again. "She'll be the socialite to get you in, but you just focus on getting in touch with Lyra once you're inside. Tara will be the distraction."</p>
<p>Adèle lingers over a lilac dress. She has shoes the exact same shade, but would that work?</p>
<p>"Will she be alright?"</p>
<p>"Tara?" Maggie laughs quietly. "Yeah, she'll be alright. Sweet of you to worry, though."</p>
<p>"Oh, I --"</p>
<p>"It's okay," Maggie says, gentler. "I don't think she'd mind if you said anything about it."</p>
<p>Her cheeks burn. "We have more important things to worry about right now."</p>
<p>"Okay." Maggie nods at the dress in Adèle's hands. "That looks good. Maybe with pearls, or something copper to set off the pink accents?"</p>
<p>"Oh -- I have just the necklace, then."</p>
<p>A car horn sounds from outside the window. They both turn to look, and as they do, Tara steps out of the vehicle, shuts the door, and leans against it, crossing her long legs in front of her. Even from five stories above, she's a vision in black and white.</p>
<p>Adèle's mouth goes dry.</p>
<p>"Other things to worry about," Émile reminds her, quiet and breathless.</p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p>She dresses, quickly and carefully, and tucks only the essentials into her slimmest purse. Maggie stops her at the door just before she goes.</p>
<p>"If it does go bad," Maggie says, "then you get out of there. Tara has done things like this before, she'll worry about Lyra. You don't worry about anything except getting out of there safely. Okay?"</p>
<p>"Alright," Adèle says. The nerves that she's tried to squash all this time come flipping up into her throat all at once, and she stops, tries again. "Alright. What about you?"</p>
<p>"I'll be with Jim. We'll be fine."</p>
<p>"He'll worry about you?"</p>
<p>It's Maggie's turn to flush. But she doesn't deflect like Adèle did; she only shrugs, her cheeks bright pink. "We'll be fine," she repeats, softly. "Just keep that smart head on your shoulders and you'll do great."</p>
<p>"Thanks."</p>
<p>"Good luck," her dæmon Tom tells Émile.</p>
<p>"Same to you," Émile returns. Then they draw a breath and go.</p>
<p>The ride to the party is quiet. As they get closer to the giant apartment building that contains Marisa Coulter's home, Adèle notices that Tara seems to become -- not less, or more, but different in her carriage.</p>
<p>Those aren't the right words to explain it, but she doesn't have any better ones. Her dæmon shuffles his wings and tucks his body in smaller, but he's still upright, his black eyes still bright and sharp. Her shoulders are still straight, her head still high, but she keeps her arms closer to her and her expression, when she looks toward Adèle, is less … less …</p>
<p>Under her previous look, Adèle sometimes felt like she wanted to swoon. Now she simply blushes.</p>
<p>"I don't quite understand," Adèle says. Why can't she concentrate? She shouldn't be this flustered over just a look. "Who are you?"</p>
<p>Tara smiles at her, and slips her a card. <em> Tara Carlisle, attorney</em>, with a New Danish telephone number. "I'm a lawyer."</p>
<p>"Really?"</p>
<p>"Yes."</p>
<p>"<em>Really?</em>"</p>
<p>"Please don't ask me again," Tara says, gentler than Adèle has heard her say anything before. "You're sweet, and you're smart. But all you need to know about me right now is that I'm a lawyer, and that I'm your friend."</p>
<p>"... Alright." Adèle nods, draws a slow, even breath. "Right. We've got other things to worry about."</p>
<p>"You got it," Tara says softly.</p>
<p>"When this is over, though," says Adèle, "you are taking me out for brunch and telling me everything."</p>
<p>"As a work thing?"</p>
<p>"What do you think?" Adèle asks, lifting her chin.</p>
<p>Tara's eyes flick over her, and she smiles, big and warm, even as the taxi cab reaches the curb and comes to a stop. Her fingers brush the back of Adèle's hand lightly; Adèle's stomach flutters in response. "I think it's a date."</p>
<p>They go inside, they mingle in the ground floor hall with a few other people waiting to go up. Adèle stays quiet, smiling and passive the way she does at work functions, waiting; Tara flits between people as gracefully as Émile in a garden, chatting easily. Then the lift bell sounds, and they all pile in, and they're going up; and then they're in Marisa Coulter's home, and there are more glittering people here, though Adèle doesn't see the lady of the house yet.</p>
<p>She <em> does </em> see a girl of about eleven, her hair closer to brown than blonde, in a blue satin dress that looks tailor-made and yet too stiflingly uncomfortable. Adèle looks at her with her tray of champagne flutes, her little ermine dæmon close by her heels, and knows that this child would be happier in a jumper or a pair of coveralls, clambering around a manky old playground outside, than in here at this party.</p>
<p>So this is Lyra Belacqua.</p>
<p>Adèle slips over to the terrace. It's a dry summer day, unusual for London; the air is crisp, baking, and there are far fewer people out here than indoors. Perfect.</p>
<p>She spots Tara through the glass sliding door, regaling a handful of others with some kind of story. They share a brief glance, and Tara's smile curves just a little more. Adèle looks away again, settled.</p>
<p>She doesn't have to wait much longer. Lyra comes to the open doorway, lingering, something closed off in her eyes and the set of her jaw.</p>
<p>Adèle steps forward and takes a flute from the tray.</p>
<p>"Lots of people here, aren't there? She's so good at keeping everyone happy. And yet you look so restless." Adèle pitches her voice soft and conspiratorial, touches Lyra's cheek briefly, smiles. "Like you're desperate to escape."</p>
<p>Lyra's eyes flicker.</p>
<p>"Shall we sit?" Adèle asks.</p>
<p>"No, I-I've got to --"</p>
<p>"Do you know what's happening here?" She looks -- the coast is clear -- then takes Lyra by the shoulder. "Come on."</p>
<p>They settle on one of the benches, the wooden boards warm to the touch. Émile flutters close by her head, keeping watch.</p>
<p>"Tell me what you know," Lyra says.</p>
<p>"I think it's a good strategy, actually. Best way to stay safe from the Gobblers. Move in with one of them," Adèle says. Lyra's eyes cloud over with confusion, and Adèle continues. "That's what they call it, isn't it? The initials, you see. General Oblation Board."</p>
<p>"Gobbler," whispers Lyra's dæmon, fluttering beside her in moth shape. When the girl speaks again, she sounds faint.</p>
<p>"She's involved with the --?"</p>
<p>"She <em> is </em> the Oblation Board. It's entirely her own project. You didn't know?"</p>
<p>How didn't she know?</p>
<p>Will she help, now that she does know?</p>
<p>"I got to go," Lyra says, standing.</p>
<p>"Lyra," Adele says. She catches her shoulder, crouches down to her level. "Lyra, papers, letters, anything, could be hugely useful." Lyra shakes her off though, slips back indoors, and Adèle follows, trying to beat down new panic. "Lyra?"</p>
<p>Coulter says something -- Adèle recognizes her by voice and then by sight, her dress a rich green color, her eyes pale and sharp. Lyra brushes her off and heads into the hall. Adèle can faintly hear her say, "I'm alright, I'm just getting some ice."</p>
<p>Well, that's blown. <em> Don't worry about anything except getting out of there safely. </em> Adèle looks for an exit, but --</p>
<p>"Now, what would you, a journalist, be talking to my assistant about," says Coulter, in front of her now, "at a party you weren't invited to?"</p>
<p>Adèle can't help it. Under that flat pale gaze, she wilts.</p>
<p>"Come this way," Coulter says, and tugs her into the hall towards the lift.</p>
<p>"I'll handle her." A man's deep voice, behind them, and Coulter turns, her hand still hard on Adèle's shoulder. "You concentrate on the girl," he continues, and Coulter hands her off to him. "You're coming with me."</p>
<p>He's not much taller than she is, but he's bigger, and solid. Lord Carlo Boreal, she thinks, faintly. Consistorial Court. She's in trouble now. What's going to happen to Tara when they find out she smuggled Adèle here?</p>
<p>"Lyra," calls Coulter, as the lift bell sounds and Boreal drags Adèle inside.</p>
<p>She shouldn't be worrying about Tara. She isn't, really, she thinks. But it's easier to think of (hope for?) Tara's knowing blue eyes going worried -- much easier to think of that than of what she would be worried about.</p>
<p>It isn't illegal to crash a party, she thinks, over and over. It isn't illegal to crash a party, and it isn't illegal to ask questions. She should be safe.</p>
<p><em> Should be </em> and <em> is </em> aren't the same thing, though. Adèle catches a glimpse of Boreal's dæmon looped close around his neck, under the collar of his shirt, and tries to stifle an automatic shiver of dread. Predator dæmons, she thinks again. How is it that she can feel safe around Tara's Martin, a <em> shrike</em>, for God's sake, but not around Boreal's --</p>
<p>What kind of snake is she? Adèle hasn't seen one like her before.</p>
<p>(Easier to wonder about taxonomy than about the decreasing floor numbers, the acid terror crawling up her throat as the lift door opens.)</p>
<p>Boreal tugs her toward a cab car once they're outside. Adèle tries to run, but his grip tightens, sparking pain up her arm. He tosses her inside and slides in after her, then shuts the door.</p>
<p>"Such a delicate face you have," he says, "for such indelicate matters. If you know who Mrs. Coulter is, then you know who I am." He pauses. "Correct?"</p>
<p>"Please don't hurt me," Adèle whispers.</p>
<p>For a moment, nothing happens, and she begins to hope. Then --</p>
<p>Then he catches Émile in his hand.</p>
<p>It feels <em> wrong</em>. It feels more than wrong, it -- it feels like he's got his hand inside her ribcage, squeezing her lungs, it feels like an invasion, a violation of the worst kind --</p>
<p>Of all the things she had imagined, she could never have imagined this.</p>
<p>"Beautiful," he says, as Adèle gasps and struggles for breath. "Quite, quite beautiful."</p>
<p>It's the last thing she hears.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. Mid-Atlantic.</b>
</p>
<p>Alec is starting to be tired of the ocean. He wouldn't have thought it possible as a kid, dreaming of swashbuckling pirate adventures, daring escapes and marvelous feats; but the ocean is cold and salt and spray, and the smell of brine is <em> everywhere</em>. More than that, he fears for his ordinator. He beefed up the insulation on its wires, but he can't keep himself from worrying that some of that godforsaken salt water is gonna get in and fry every last piece of tech.</p>
<p>To say nothing of the radio comms. The rest of the crew has <em> no </em> idea how long it took to come up with something wireless and small enough to fit in an ear comfortably! No, they might as well grow on trees!</p>
<p>Alec <em> yearns </em> for dry land. Lucille fares only a little better; she likes water, and her fur is thick enough to keep out most of the cold, but rivers are her happy place, not something as wild and deep as an ocean.</p>
<p>They spent less than a day in Boston before they set off again. Just long enough to get A'Yan taken care of.</p>
<p>She'd made a beeline straight for Eliot -- she'd recognized him from his pilot cover when the job started, Alec guesses. Remembering it brings a swirl of warmth to his stomach: the way Eliot's eyes had softened when he spoke to A'Yan, the way he'd called her 'habibti' so gently and easily, the way he'd held out a hand for a high five.</p>
<p>Yeah, that man's got a soft spot a mile wide.</p>
<p>It was worth it, to help A'Yan. It'll be worth it, to help the Gyptian kids. But Alec reserves his God-given right to complain about how they do it.</p>
<p>Starting with the damn ocean.</p>
<p>"Dammit, Hardison," Eliot snaps, after only the third sullen comment in a row. Alec is either losing his touch or perfecting it; he's not sure which he'd prefer. "Just dump all your anbaronics in a tarp and call it a night like the rest of us, alright?"</p>
<p>"Dump 'em in a tarp -- man, were you raised in a <em> barn? </em> Dump 'em in a <em> tarp </em> --"</p>
<p>"Just quit bitchin' about it!"</p>
<p>"What's gotten into you, man?"</p>
<p>"You're what's gotten into me --!"</p>
<p>Eliot bites off the rest of whatever he was gonna say, though, and just glares at Alec instead. There's something -- there's something off about him, that's been off for a while, and the only thing Alec can put his thumb on is that his irritation has been set on a hair trigger for the last four months.</p>
<p>-- Yeah, actually. If he was gonna trace it all the way back to the beginning, it would have started four months ago.</p>
<p>"The hell are you lookin' at," Eliot growls.</p>
<p>They're all tired, they're all cold, they're all cranky. But this is different. It feels different. And not just because of the way they've been in transit for the last week straight, not just because they've got Moreau <em> and </em> a bunch of missing kids to worry about.</p>
<p>But if Alec pushes, Eliot ain't gonna say a word about that other reason why.</p>
<p>"Nothin', man," Alec says. He scoops up Lucille in his arms, and she presses her face to his neck. "Don't worry about it."</p>
<p>He turns to leave, ducks so he doesn't bang his head on the low doorway. As he does, Lucille peeks up over his shoulder -- just a little -- and then as they turn into the hall, she shifts in his arms, tugs at his jacket.</p>
<p>"Alec," she whispers. "Alec, I saw 'em just now."</p>
<p>"Lucille, girl, please. Just -- let's just leave it."</p>
<p>"Alec," pleading now, "they looked like they were about to cry. They were just standing there a foot apart, like always --" she's shaking now, in his hands, and he holds her tighter "-- and his face, Alec, he looked like he was about to fly apart in a thousand little pieces, and Sarah …"</p>
<p>He stops in the hall and just holds Lucille, clutches her closer, one hand running down her back over and over. She doesn't speak again, but whimpers and buries her face in his neck again, her nose cold and damp against his skin.</p>
<p>"How'd this go to hell so quickly?" he mumbles. "I thought we had him pegged. I thought …"</p>
<p>"She wouldn't go to him," Lucille whispers. "Alec, if I thought you were gonna cry, I'd already be there, I'd be right here, you know I would. But Sarah wouldn't. Why not?"</p>
<p>"He doesn't go to her either." He tightens his grip on her again, and her claws hook in his scarf and coat, and they press closer, like if they tried they could inhabit the same skin. "He never has, girl, and I don't know why, but I don't think he'd tell me if I asked."</p>
<p>"I wanted to go to him," Lucille says. Sobs. "Alec -- Alec, I wanted to go to him and hug him, just like this --"</p>
<p>His breath punches out of him all at once.</p>
<p>"Lucille --"</p>
<p>"I know. I know." She keens quietly, wordless misery and longing, and he chokes back a sob of his own. "I know, it isn't -- and I know he, he'd never, but I --"</p>
<p>"We gotta wait," he manages. He can't breathe, he can't breathe, but he has to. "We gotta wait for both of 'em, baby, Parker <em> and </em> Eliot, we can't rush. We got time."</p>
<p>They have to believe that.</p>
<p>They have to.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>Maggie does laundry on the deck while she waits for Lyra to finish talking with Farder Coram and John Faa. It gives her something to do with her hands, gives her a way to work off the nervous energy still pounding through her.</p>
<p>She shouldn't have been so sharp with Tony this morning. <em> Close isn't good enough</em>. She apologized, in the moments just after Lyra left, but Tony just went off again. Probably to be with Benjamin; they've been thick as thieves since long before his Welcoming Day, and are more like brothers now than ever.</p>
<p>It worries her, though. Benjamin is taking point on the Gobbler raids -- it's him Tony was following last night. What if it had gone wrong? What if their luck runs out?</p>
<p>She scrubs harder, hard enough to make her hands raw, to make her skin smart under the lye soap. Asher chirps at her, concerned, but she only huffs at him. They don't need to speak in order to communicate, these days.</p>
<p>Lyra Belacqua. Last time Maggie saw her, the girl had been trying to sink her boat.</p>
<p>Oxford feels like a lifetime ago. It's been less than a month. But in that month …</p>
<p>Her eyes sting. She ducks her head to blot the tears with her shoulder, since her hands are still soapy.</p>
<p>"Maggie."</p>
<p>She turns, and sees Lyra briefly before the girl disappears back below decks. Then John Faa in his blue checked flannel coat, a few feet away, his hands tucked in his pockets, Opal on his shoulder.</p>
<p>Asher ducks his head, only mildly embarrassed that he didn't warn her of their approach.</p>
<p>"John."</p>
<p>"Lyra has agreed to stay."</p>
<p>"That's good."</p>
<p>She goes back to scrubbing her favorite pair of coveralls, the last thing in the soap bin. He takes a few steps closer.</p>
<p>Not enough to crowd her, though, she sees out of the corner of her eye. He's solid, John is; always deliberate, always certain, never hesitant. If he's being careful with her now -- which he is, she knows, she can feel it in her bones from the way he looks at her -- then he has a reason for it.</p>
<p>"She knew about her father," John says. "She would not say how she knew. But she does not seem to know her mother yet."</p>
<p>"You didn't tell her?"</p>
<p>"It's not my story to tell."</p>
<p>She has nothing to say to that. It warms her from her head to her toes, curls up close against her lungs, but she can't voice it. She's still too sharp, she thinks; if she voices it now, it'll come out like glass shards.</p>
<p>She doesn't want him to cut his hands on her.</p>
<p>"Can I help?" he says, nodding to the clothes currently resting in the rinse bin.</p>
<p>She doesn't trust herself to speak. So she only nods, and shifts to give him room to stand beside her.</p>
<p>It en't right, in all likelihood, to let the king of the Western Gyptians stand by her and help her hang up clothes to dry. It en't the best use of his time -- he could be talking with the heads of families right now, or consulting with Farder Coram, or overseeing Benjamin's interrogation of the Gobbler, or any of a hundred other things.</p>
<p>But he's here, and his hands are careful as he hangs up her favorite sleeveless striped jumper on the line, and his presence beside her is warm in the cool of the morning.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Ten</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Well, we finally have an end in sight! And with this chapter, we are officially at the halfway point. Buckle up, folks.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>Nate and Sophie go to meet with Tara and Sterling. All for the better, in Parker's opinion; Eliot can't see Sterling without wanting to beat him to a pulp, and Parker knows from experience that Hardison is just as much an enabler as she is on that account, so they wouldn't be able to get anything done for at least the first five minutes. It's nice to be on the same page, she thinks. Especially since everything has been mixed up and jangly for the last --</p>
<p>She frowns to herself, Charlie shuffling her wings together, and counts it out carefully. Yeah, it's been pretty much since the whole Moreau thing started. Not that she could have pinpointed it with that kind of accuracy back then, but now …</p>
<p>But that's a smaller problem, or more accurately, of a different urgency than the problem on their hands now. Triage, that's the thing. Stop the bleeding and then see where to go from there.</p>
<p>"You sure this is the right place?" Eliot asks gruffly.</p>
<p>"Yup," says Parker. She scuffs the toe of her boot along the very edge of the quay, enjoying the soft scraping sound. "They said to meet them here. You can't miss 'em, Eliot, the guy's bigger than Hardison and has an orange cat dæmon."</p>
<p>"Hold up, hold up," says Hardison. He puts a hand on his chest and does that thing where he pretends to be offended but really isn't; Parker knows it from the bright button gleam of Lucille's eyes, shining out from where she's tucked snugly in his coat. "Bigger than me?"</p>
<p>"Yeah."</p>
<p>"I'm six one, how is he bigger than me?"</p>
<p>"It happens, Hardison."</p>
<p>"Now you'll know what the rest of us feel like," grumbles Eliot. "For once."</p>
<p>"Oh, just because you're Shorty McShort Dude --"</p>
<p>"I'm not <em> short</em>, Hardison --"</p>
<p>"You are, you're travel sized, I could pop you in my pocket --"</p>
<p>"In your pocket, huh? You wanna try it? Go on, try it, Hardison, pop me in your pocket --"</p>
<p>"They're here!" says Parker, and the boys shut up and move to flank her on either side as she crosses over to where Farder Coram and the Gyptian king are only just now exiting their boat. It's a nice boat too, a little floaty one painted white and a sort of coffee-brown, and it bobs up and down in the Thames like a cork. Coram's dæmon leaps delicately from the edge of the boat onto the dock; the king's hooded crow is settled on his shoulder, big and imposing.</p>
<p>Charlie is, generously, half the crow's size. She settles in close on Parker's hoodie, snug and warm in the London chill, and Parker turns her cheek in for a moment before waving hello.</p>
<p>"Thank you for meeting with us," says Farder Coram. "We appreciate you taking the time to come back to London."</p>
<p>"We were in the neighborhood," says Parker. On her right, Eliot does one of his quiet huffing laughs.</p>
<p>"Still, we appreciate it," Coram says. He nods at Eliot and Hardison, then the man beside him. "Lord Faa, this is Alice White of Leverage Incorporated. Miss White; gentlemen; this is John Faa, king of the Western Gyptians."</p>
<p>"Alice, but you can call me Parker," says Parker, pointing in turn; "Eliot; Hardison."</p>
<p>"Well met," says John Faa. His voice is raspy like Eliot's but deep like Hardison's, and with the same even tenor of Nate -- like if the three of them had been all mushed together into one person. He doesn't hold out his hand to shake, but he does nod briefly at them, and they nod back.</p>
<p>"What's the situation going on with the kids?" Hardison asks.</p>
<p>"We found proof that the Gobblers are in London," Faa says. He glances at Coram, then back at them. "We also found proof that the Gobblers have taken our children. We captured one of them, but he is not talking as yet."</p>
<p>"I could help you with that," Eliot says quietly.</p>
<p>Wait, what?</p>
<p>But before Parker and Charlie can even turn to look at him, Eliot continues, "What kind of intel are you looking for?"</p>
<p>Coram and Faa exchange another glance. "We need to know where they take the children, and what they do with them when they get there," says Coram. "We are hopeful that the Gobbler will speak."</p>
<p>"And if he doesn't?" asks Parker, frowning. "If the Gobblers are here, I mean, they've gotta have some kinda base of operations." She turns to Hardison. "If we can get schematics or blueprints or something, then you can track --"</p>
<p>"On it, girl." Hardison pulls out his coding notebook and ballpoint pen. "If we can take a look at what you've already got, we can see about learning more."</p>
<p>"Hardison can find anyone and anything," Parker tells the two men. Coram looks vaguely doubtful, but Faa just looks at Hardison. His expression hasn't moved at all, and his dæmon has stayed put, without ruffling feathers or adjusting weight once. That kind of immobility in dæmons is something that Parker doesn't encounter often: probably only Nate and Eliot are a match for it.</p>
<p>Which says a lot about this John Faa.</p>
<p>"We have transportation routes, and an address for the last known location where they kept the children," says Faa. "You believe you can find the children through this alone?"</p>
<p>"Address gives me an in for who owns the building," Hardison explains. His Explaining Voice is calm, confident, soothing; Parker's shoulders come down just a little more, and on her other side she can feel Eliot shifting in place just enough. "Once I got a name and a location, I can track ownership, tenants, what-have-you, and that gets to the money. Once we got the money, I can get you pretty much anything. Paper trails, man, it's a new age."</p>
<p><em> Age of the geek</em>, Parker thinks, and her eyes flick to Hardison's face. A smile on the corner of his mouth is already waiting for her.</p>
<p>"As for ownership," Coram says in his rusty oak voice, "we already know who is ultimately behind it. It isn't the <em> who </em> we're after, it's the <em> where</em>."</p>
<p>"Right, the Gobblers," says Parker. "But … what <em> are </em> the Gobblers?"</p>
<p>"The General Oblation Board of London," says Faa. "They are run by Mrs. Coulter."</p>
<p>"Mrs. Coulter," Hardison repeats, jotting the name down. "I definitely feel like I've heard that name before."</p>
<p>"She is well known in London society," Coram says. "Even putting aside her reputation, it is difficult to miss a woman with a golden monkey for a dæmon."</p>
<p>At Parker's side, she feels Eliot go very, very still.</p>
<p>Coram doesn't notice it. Faa doesn't notice it. Hardison is writing it all down in his notebook. But like a prickle on the back of her neck, Parker feels Charlie make eye contact with Lucille, and then feels them both staring at Sarah, who is as rock solid as a statue, just like Eliot.</p>
<p>Parker, who learned very young to zip away certain emotions in a secret baggie somewhere under her ribcage, shoves her hands in her coat pocket and bounces lightly on her heels. "So, Magisterium, is what that sounds like," she says.</p>
<p>"The landloper authorities have already conducted a raid on our boats once," says John Faa grimly. "They have never respected us and will not start now. They will protect the Gobblers."</p>
<p>"What do they do with the kids?"</p>
<p>Eliot's voice is quiet, scraped out of his throat like it hurts. Parker chances a look at him, and his eyes flicker briefly: a no. She swallows and looks back at the Gyptians.</p>
<p>"We do not know yet," says Coram. "As I said, we are hopeful that our captured Gobbler will talk."</p>
<p>"Well, in the meantime, I can see what I can find," Hardison says. His voice is quieter too, solemn. He snaps the elastic band back over his notebook and tucks it and his pen back into his coat pocket.</p>
<p>"You don't need any more information than that?" asks Faa, his eyes sharp.</p>
<p>"Don't have to." Hardison shrugs. "If it was just a goon, then yeah, I'd need more info as a starting point. But the head honcho? Yeah, that's gonna be a lot simpler to track."</p>
<p>"We need to find out where they are taking the children," says Faa. "Getting the children back is our first priority."</p>
<p>"We're gonna do everything we can to make sure that happens, sir," Eliot says.</p>
<p>"We will talk more of this at the roping tonight, as we agreed," says Faa.</p>
<p>Faa doesn't reach out to shake their hands, but he does nod at all three of them, short and sharp, when they make their goodbyes. The two Gyptian men head back to their boat, and Parker doesn't have to say a word for Hardison and Eliot to turn with her to leave the dock.</p>
<p>"Okay," Hardison says quietly, pitching his voice just right to be heard over the noise of the boat setting off. "That was weird, and we're gonna talk about it later, right?"</p>
<p>"I don't know what you're talking about," says Eliot.</p>
<p>It's a lie. Even if Parker didn't know it from what had happened just now, she'd know it from the harsh way the words rake across Eliot's throat and in her ears. Eliot doesn't lie to them, and the fact that he just did --</p>
<p>"Eliot," she starts, but he cuts her off.</p>
<p>"Parker, don't."</p>
<p>Sarah opens her mouth and closes it again; Parker feels it through Charlie, whose every feather is fluffed up, tense and upset, but she bundles that feeling away fiercely. Because Sarah's ears are flat to her skull, her fur is bristling with hackles raised; her pupils are narrow lines in her green eyes; she looks --</p>
<p>She looks mad. At <em> Eliot</em>.</p>
<p>Parker can count on one hand the number of times Charlie has been that mad at her. Less than one hand.</p>
<p>What the actual fresh hell is going on?</p>
<p>But they don't have time. They have to go meet Nate and Sophie. So despite the fact that she wants to object just as much as Hardison is clearly gearing up to, Parker says, "Okay. Not now. But if Nate needs to know, and he doesn't, he's gonna be pissed."</p>
<p>Lucille makes a quiet sound in her throat. Charlie shakes herself out from inside Parker's hoodie and makes one short circuit in the air before diving back down to land on her shoulder, her claws catching slightly on Parker's hoodie as she finds her grip again. Parker doesn't blink.</p>
<p>"We're just worried, man," Hardison tells Eliot, in a calm voice Parker's only heard him use with her before. "That's all it is."</p>
<p>"You don't have to worry," Eliot says. He won't look at them. "Just -- let's just focus on the kids."</p>
<p>"Yeah," Hardison says softly. "Alright."</p>
<p>It's not alright, and all of them know it. But the wrongness jangles between them like a live wire only so far as it takes to meet Sophie and Nate at the hotel.</p>
<p>Not for a good reason.</p>
<p>Sterling and Tara and Maggie are all apparently okay. But the journalist they'd apparently been working with has disappeared.</p>
<p>"Tara said she saw Adèle with Marisa Coulter before she disappeared," Sophie says, her voice quiet and subdued but still edged somehow, rigid. "Whatever this woman is doing with the Gobblers, she doesn't want anyone to find out."</p>
<p>"Well, but we can find Adèle, right?" says Hardison. He shares a glance with Lucille and continues, "We know from the Gyptians that Coulter is Magisterium; we can find out bank information to put pressure on her financially, or come up with something to feed the rumor mill, or --"</p>
<p>"No," says Nate. "We can't."</p>
<p>"Why not?" It's the first thing Eliot's said since the dock, and his voice is all covered in rust. "We don't leave our allies out to dry, Nate, we never have. <em> You </em> never have."</p>
<p>"Because --"</p>
<p>"-- You'll <em> never guess </em> who was waiting to ambush us before Tara and Sterling arrived," Sophie interrupts. Her hands are in her pockets, her shoulders rigid like her voice. Her eyes, when she looks at Nate, are even sharper. Parker might not be good at people, but she knows Mad Sophie when she sees her.</p>
<p>"Nate's imaginary Italian friend," says Parker.</p>
<p>"Wait, you <em> saw </em> her?" Hardison asks.</p>
<p>"Oh, no. No, she got ahold of him while I was in the ladies' room."</p>
<p>Nate shrugs. Parker thinks he looks uncomfortable, but it's still hard to tell sometimes with him. Aoife rubs her forelegs together and resettles on the collar of Nate's jacket, still and silent.</p>
<p>Oh. So Nate is mad, too, then.</p>
<p>"She wanted to remind me of our priorities," Nate says, cold and hard, rapping out the words like he's knocking on a table, rat-tat-tat. "No matter what help the Gyptians need, whatever they might ask for at the roping tonight, our mission is Damien Moreau. Our hands are tied."</p>
<p>"Seriously?" Lucille asks. Her voice pitches higher than normal, upset, and she climbs half out of her spot in Hardison's jacket to get a better look at everyone, her whiskers twitching, her fur bristling. Hardison puts a hand on her back, but she doesn't stop. "Who <em> is </em> this chick? No name, no face, and she wants us to just play along to whatever tune she wants? I get that Moreau is bad, but Aoife, Nate, come <em> on</em>. Give us something, here."</p>
<p>"Lucille is right," says Sarah. Out of the corner of her eye, Parker sees Eliot shoot a glare at his dæmon, but Sarah's ears flatten and she, too, continues undeterred. She's practically snarling by the end. "We know nothing about this woman. Which makes her a loose cannon as far as we're concerned. We need as much information as possible, Nate, <em> you </em> need as much information as possible. How else is any of this going to work?"</p>
<p>"Either you trust us to work with what we have, or you don't," says Aoife.</p>
<p>Aoife <em> never </em> talks to anyone except Nate or Luke. It shuts them all up immediately.</p>
<p>"I like this even less than you do," Nate says. "But we don't have a choice."</p>
<p>"Nate," says Sophie.</p>
<p>"We don't," he snaps. "The Italian made it clear we have no say in the matter."</p>
<p>"You're hanging us out to dry, Nate," says Hardison. His hand is buried in Lucille's fur, his skin gone slightly paler at the knuckles from how tight he's holding onto her. Charlie shivers slightly on Parker's shoulder; without having to look, without having to speak, she and Parker both know Lucille is positively shaking with how much she wants to fidget with her Rubix cube right now. "Flying blind -- man, pick whatever metaphor you want. Maybe <em> you're </em> comfortable going in with no intel, but <em> we </em> sure as hell aren't."</p>
<p>Eliot doesn't say a single word.</p>
<p>"Parker, you've been quiet," says Sophie. She's got her Mad Mom Voice on; it settles something in Parker's gut. "What do you think?"</p>
<p>"Maybe Nate's imaginary Italian friend really is imaginary," Parker says. "Like Casper the Ghost."</p>
<p>"Casper the -- really, Parker?" Eliot grumbles. But it's under his breath, and kind of squinty, not looking at her properly.</p>
<p>"Well?" Parker shrugs. "Nobody else has seen her. Maybe she's dead people, like in the Sixth Sense."</p>
<p>"If she was dead, she wouldn't be such a pain in my ass," Nate says flatly. "No, she's real alright, and she has the potential to be a real problem if we don't do what she wants. Which, may I remind everyone, is taking down Moreau -- which is in <em> everyone's </em> best interests. Right?"</p>
<p>No one speaks.</p>
<p>"Right," says Nate. "Now, can we just -- get on with the debrief so we can all make it to the roping on time."</p>
<p>Hardison runs it. Lucille is quiet, not chipping in like she usually does, burrowed close in Hardison's coat and not looking at anyone at all. It makes Charlie go twitchy; she keeps adjusting her weight on Parker's shoulder, and making small sounds in her throat, and pulling on Parker's hair.</p>
<p>When Hardison gets to the bit about Marisa Coulter, Lucille turns her face in towards Hardison's chest. But before anyone else can say anything, Nate is up and stuffing his hands in his pockets, staring at the picture.</p>
<p>"Marisa Coulter is something of an odd duck," he says. Then pauses. "Like me. Only --" He takes out one hand again and makes a seesaw motion with it. On his shoulder, Aoife laughs. Not a good laugh, though. He pockets his hand again. "She had a rather, ah, infamous scandal twelve years ago, when she had a child out of wedlock and the father killed her husband."</p>
<p>"Lord Asriel," says Sophie. She leans forward, her eyes sharp. "Isn't it?"</p>
<p>"That's right, Asriel Belacqua," Nate confirms.</p>
<p>"Asriel Belacqua has been up North for the last year or so, doing experiments," Hardison says. "I've heard it on the grapevine, experimental theology using anbaromagnetic pulses, that sorta thing -- but lately he's been doing more theoretical stuff. I don't know much of the specifics, though."</p>
<p>"Whatever it is, the Magisterium has always been scared of it," says Nate.</p>
<p>"You don't think it's to do with Marisa Coulter and the -- the Gobblers, do you?" Sophie asks.</p>
<p>"Only one way to find out," Nate says.</p>
<p>"But that's assuming the Italian will let us get anywhere near them."</p>
<p>"Well, we'll see when this is over."</p>
<p>"Unless Moreau and Marisa Coulter are connected somehow," says Hardison.</p>
<p>Eliot draws a breath but doesn't say anything. It's less than a second. Then Nate is talking again, repeating -- again -- that for right now they have one job to do and they can't get sidetracked. He hasn't turned away from the picture of Marisa Coulter.</p>
<p>It makes Parker's nerves itch wrong, like wool.</p>
<p>"If we aren't getting sidetracked, then why are we going to the roping? Just to say, 'sorry, we can't help you'?"</p>
<p>It isn't what she meant to say, but it's definitely a question that needs an answer. So she just sits there and stretches her mouth in a thin tight line and waits while Nate finally turns around again.</p>
<p>And gets exactly the answer she didn't want.</p>
<p>"Yes, that's why we're going. Any more questions?"</p>
<p>Yes, she <em> does </em> have more questions, but there are too many of them: they clog her throat and brain, clumpy like oatmeal but cold this time, thick and gross to the touch, and she's still itchy like wool between her shoulderblades and Charlie on her shoulder is all prickled up feathers, and she doesn't say a word, and Nate looks at Sophie and whatever he sees must make him think this is fine, because he just nods and clasps his hands in front of him and says, "Alright then, let's get going."</p>
<p>And so they do.</p>
<p>The roping is held on the Thames, in one large boat that's about three or four times the size of the ones it's surrounded by; there are too many of those for Parker to count. They go below the deck -- down actual stairs, because a boat this big has the space to justify stairs over a ladder -- and it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust to the soft naphtha lamps hung from the ceiling, but once they do, she sees Gyptians gathered together in knots, and the knots all packed together densely in the room; chatter washes over her ears with the same dull constant static of ocean waves, just as likely to drown out sense. The acoustics in this room are just perfect for a feedback loop: if there is any talking over the main speaker (and what group this large doesn't have talking over?), it will be all she'll be able to hear. Charlie fluffs her feathers and settles down snug in Parker's hoodie, and they resign themselves to just watching whatever happens tonight, instead of being able to listen.</p>
<p>Nate and Aoife peel off ahead of the rest of them to find John Faa. After a moment, Eliot goes after Nate, Sarah close on his heels.</p>
<p>Whatever Nate and Eliot say to John Faa, they keep it quick. And whatever John Faa thinks of what they said, he and his dæmon don't show it. Then the roping begins, and Parker is pleasantly surprised to find that not only does his voice carry, but absolutely no one else even tries to speak over him.</p>
<p>There's one kid here: Lyra Belacqua. She's twelve, and somehow both lanky and too small for her age, like a colt on brand new limbs; her voice, when she shouts, is bright and strong. It reminds Parker of when she was twelve too, lost and alone and picking anger because it was easier than fear. Only Lyra isn't alone, she thinks, lifting a hand to bury it in Charlie's feathers. Lyra has John Faa and Farder Coram, and Tony and his mother too. Yeah, she can see it -- the protective way Tony flanks Lyra, the arm his mother has wrapped around Lyra's shoulders. And the other Gyptian too, the one from the market who was standing with Coram and John Faa, the one with the watchful hawk dæmon. He's just as quick to defend.</p>
<p>From the look on his face, despite the way that John Faa brings the roping, roaring, to a close, the conversation isn't over. No: the same look on his face is the one that Eliot gets, when he knows a job isn't done and he's going to have to dive in headfirst to do it.</p>
<p>And, well, it's not like she disagrees.</p>
<p>One way or another, Parker is not going to get much sleep tonight.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Eleven</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Of course I only go digging in the wiki deep enough to find Maggie Costa's dæmon's name today of all days. Oh well. Vote in the comments: do y'all like Asher or Jal better?</p>
<p>Content warning for both sections taking place in Present London. The first includes a vague description of injury and incarceration; the second is Marisa Coulter's perspective on the raid in her flat from His Dark Materials s1e3: The Spies.</p>
<p>With a twist, however. Make sure you read the bit near the end that starts at "I betray my family for no one." That new "Fix-It" tag is there for a reason.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Fifteen Years Ago. Oxford.</b>
</p>
<p>"We are here to give thanks and tribute. My son's dæmon has settled as a hawk!"</p>
<p>A cheer goes up, wild and loud and joyous. Ma Ruyter beams from her spot on the platform and turns to her son, tall and proud, and the dæmon perched on his shoulder.</p>
<p>"Sura, soul, companion, and protector of my son. I welcome you in your settled form to my family, and my trust."</p>
<p>Sura chirps once, softly. In her spot in the crowd, Maggie lifts up Tony in her arms so he can see better.</p>
<p>"This ring," and Ma Ruyter slips the newly forged silver onto Benjamin's hand, "confirms the settling of your dæmon, and your transition from child to man."</p>
<p>Another cheer rises, and Tony babbles excitedly in Maggie's ear. She hugs the toddler closer and presses a kiss to his cheek; Asher curls one wing close around Lyuba's tiny squirrel form.</p>
<p>Ma Ruyter turns to the crowd. "Who here will help guide Sura and Benjamin?"</p>
<p>"Opal and I will," says a deep strong voice, to more whoops and cheers.</p>
<p>"Thank you, John Faa!"</p>
<p>It's no surprise; the Guide is always known ahead of time, well before the newly-Welcomed adult's dæmon settles. John Faa may be next in line for the kingship of the western Gyptians, but that's just as well: Ma Ruyter is the head of her family, and an impressive force in her own right. John and Benjamin have been thick as thieves ever since Benjamin was old enough to walk on his own.</p>
<p>John walks up to the stage, Opal bright and gleaming on his shoulder. Ma Ruyter crushes him in an embrace, and Benjamin grins from ear to ear.</p>
<p>The ceremony continues, and ends with another explosion of claps and whistles. Tony fusses for a moment -- he doesn't like loud noises, she's learning, but how could they have missed this? -- and Maggie waits until he's calm again, then brings Tony to meet Benjamin and Sura properly.</p>
<p>"Congratulations," she tells Benjamin, and gives him a one-armed hug. "Well done, Ben. You're going to be brilliant."</p>
<p>"Thanks, Mags," he says. His eyes are bright with pride. "I can't believe it, still. It snuck up on us."</p>
<p>"I don't know if there's anyone it doesn't sneak up on," says John. He's got one of his crooked smiles on, and Maggie has to busy herself adjusting Tony's jumper so she doesn't blush at the look. "None of us would have pegged you for a goshawk, Maggie."</p>
<p>"Well, it's easy to peg you for a crow, John," she says. "Big family, too smart for your own good --"</p>
<p>"Goshawk," he says, his hands in his pockets, his brown eyes twinkling, "solitary, territorial --"</p>
<p>"Alright, alright." Benjamin rolls his eyes. "Get your own boat, you two."</p>
<p>"Ben!"</p>
<p>"I call it like I see it, Mags."</p>
<p>"Insufferable," she says, though without any bite. "Look, though, we're right proud, and that's the truth."</p>
<p>"Ben, Ben, Ben," says Tony. He reaches out with both hands, and Benjamin holds out a finger for Tony to latch onto. Tony crows happily.</p>
<p>"Maybe someday soon you'll be Tony's Guide," says John.</p>
<p>"Too soon," Benjamin and Maggie say together.</p>
<p>"He's not even two yet!"</p>
<p>"I've not been settled a full week yet!"</p>
<p>"Well?" John asks. "Tell me I'm wrong."</p>
<p>He en't wrong, though, is the thing of it all. For all John was bound to be Benjamin's Guide, Ben is just as close of a little sib to Maggie. In five or ten years' time, she probably will nominate him for Tony.</p>
<p>"I'll do for him like you do for me, John," Benjamin says.</p>
<p>John sets his hand on Benjamin's shoulder.</p>
<p>"I know you will."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>She's been here for three days now. Or four. She tried to keep track, but it's difficult when the light never changes and all sound in the hall seems to have been surgically removed. That, and her head still aches and her breath still comes fast; she gets dizzy spells now that she never did before. Maybe before it all happened, she'd have been able to count the minutes between guard changes without a hitch -- but, well, everything happened, so she takes the minutes one at a time.</p>
<p>It's temporary, she thinks. Hopes. Émile will recover, and so will she. It's like a concussion, right?</p>
<p>So maybe it's a good thing that they keep the entire hall of cells so dark and silent. What they can't see won't hurt Émile's multifaceted eyes; what they can't hear won't split her head open.</p>
<p>Still, the guards' patrol is a pattern, and not at random. Of this much Adèle is certain. The guards with their lean hound dæmons all keep such an even gait, never stopping, never lingering, that it <em> must </em> be set by a timepiece.</p>
<p>It's been three days now, maybe four. The only thing that's ever changed is sometimes another door will open further down, and along with the click of boots and clawed feet she'll hear a shuffle, or once the whisper of scales on the floor. If anyone speaks, she can't hear it. But each time the sounds get progressively louder, she thinks. They're working their way down the hall.</p>
<p>She doesn't know how much longer she has. She doesn't know what will happen if the guards take her. What she does know is that she doesn't intend to stay and find out.</p>
<p>In the darkness and the silence, she and Émile whisper to each other. When they get out -- not if, but <em> when </em> -- she wants to remember this. Every moment caught shivering between boredom and terror, she wants to keep so she can write it all down.</p>
<p>It's not enough on its own; she's only a bit of dirt in one gear in the whole of the machine. But even a smidge of dirt in one single gear can throw the whole machine off -- and this, here? Her capture?</p>
<p>It'll be part of one hell of a story.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Twelve Years Ago. East Anglia.</b>
</p>
<p>Benjamin meets Maggie at the river bank, Tony at his heels, Sura and Lyuba wheeling overhead.</p>
<p>"I came as soon as I heard," he says, and Maggie flings her arms around him and kisses the side of his head, then ducks down to kiss Tony's little face as he cries, "Ma!"</p>
<p>"You're safe, you're safe," she cries in turn. She can't seem to stop trembling; she pats Benjamin's arms, strokes Tony's soft black hair, holds onto both of their hands. "You're safe."</p>
<p>"Ben looked out for us," Tony pipes up. "I helped!"</p>
<p>"He did," says Benjamin. "He was ever so good."</p>
<p>"That's my little boy."</p>
<p>"Maaa! I'm four!"</p>
<p>"Until you're taller'n me, you're my little boy."</p>
<p>"She's right, that's how it works."</p>
<p>"<em>Benjamin,</em>" Tony whines. Benjamin and Maggie give each other a look; suddenly it becomes very, very difficult to keep from laughing.</p>
<p>"How was it?" Maggie asks.</p>
<p>"We're fine." Benjamin sobers, and gives her another look -- a different one that he's given more and more in the last few years, as he grows into himself and becomes more sure. It's a look that says he's got all the puzzle pieces assembled and is ready to start fitting them together. "How are <em> you</em>, is the question to ask. You're the one that was there when Edward Coulter came."</p>
<p>"Wasn't much to worry about in the end," Maggie says. She steps back a moment and puts her arms around herself. "Lord Asriel sorted it out right quick."</p>
<p>"Heard about that. Is it true he had a servant fetch him a glass of brandy right after?"</p>
<p>Maggie exhales. "Yeah, that's true alright. Blood hadn't even soaked into the rug yet."</p>
<p>"Hell," Benjamin says, with feeling. "En't none like Lord Asriel, that's for sure."</p>
<p>"Not sure I'd want more'n one of him around. Can you imagine?"</p>
<p>He shakes his head. "Not sure I'd want to," he echoes. They smile at each other, soft and weary.</p>
<p>"I appreciate you doing this for me, Benjamin. Really."</p>
<p>"Of course, Mags. Anytime."</p>
<p>"Not anytime." She presses his arm gently. "You're the head of the family now, what with your ma stepping down. You got lots better to do."</p>
<p>"What, and let Jaxer and Kerim twist themselves in knots running after Tony?"</p>
<p>On cue, Tony makes a face.</p>
<p>"Too good for your own cousins, Tony?"</p>
<p>"I just like Benjamin better."</p>
<p>"I think he'd follow you to the ends of the earth if you'd let him," Maggie says.</p>
<p>She's half joking, but Benjamin straightens, his expression earnest.</p>
<p>"I'd never let anything happen to him, Mags. And that's a promise."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>Marisa can't sleep.</p>
<p>Perhaps it's because of Hugh and his wretched little speech the other day, the one that broke her cool so badly that even Lyra could see it. The one that spelled outright how very willing the Cardinal is to disown her if something were to go wrong. It's something she knew already, something she's known all along; she certainly did not need Hugh and his horrendous toady Garret to come all the way to her flat to tell her. It still rankles her even now, the unnecessary things he'd said, the careless way she'd lost control because of it. Yes, perhaps that is why she cannot sleep.</p>
<p>Perhaps it's because of the spy-flies she set out tonight, marked with the scent of Lyra's favorite blue dress to track her. She'd been holding onto those, an ace hidden in her sleeve, for at least ten years. Once she never would have thought herself desperate enough to use them -- just thinking of what would happen if she gets caught is enough to make her shudder -- but it's <em> Lyra</em>. She already tore apart Jordan College, and she's already tried a boat raid: what tool at her disposal shouldn't she use? What wouldn't she do to find Lyra again?</p>
<p>Or, then again, perhaps the reason Marisa cannot sleep is because of that nosy journalist who snuck into her party to talk to Lyra the other day. Whoever she's working for, it's one more on the list of enemies -- Marisa needs to know who sent her. Yet the woman is still somewhere in the bowels of the Magisterium's detainment center, awaiting interrogation. She should go and put pressure on them to actually get around to it. But then, Hugh might be pulling on those strings; it might be he's delaying the inquiry specifically to spite her. She wouldn't put it past him. Hugh has something of a petty streak, which is delicious when aimed at someone else and absolutely intolerable when aimed at her. She half hopes this is the case: it would mean that pulling on <em> his </em> strings would solve two problems at once. She likes efficiency.</p>
<p>Ah, which brings her around to Damien …</p>
<p>Marisa turns onto her side, pulls the silk sheets up over her shoulder, stares out at the rectangle of moonlight on the plush carpet creeping closer to the wall as the moon continues rising. Sooner or later, she is going to have to deal with Damien; which is to say, she is going to have to find a way to kill him before he kills her.</p>
<p>She doesn't even like him. She's dreamed about killing Hugh and Asriel, and even Boreal, though she would never dare let him know it. Sometimes in her dreams they kill her at the same time she kills them. Sometimes they curse her, or thank her. But she has never once dreamed of killing Damien. He's just … a chore.</p>
<p>Somewhere in the air ducts, she can feel her dæmon chittering restlessly to himself. He doesn't speak, thank God; he knows how angry it makes her when he does. But this far away from him, on the edge of sleep while he pulls on their link with the kind of sharp pain they both like, she tolerates his little sounds.</p>
<p>Then, faintly, through his ears, she hears voices.</p>
<p>"-- <em> can't be seen, then why did you come?</em>"</p>
<p>"<em>I had to come; I had to do </em> something. <em> Why did </em> you <em> come?</em>"</p>
<p>"<em>You just answered that question</em>."</p>
<p>"<em>Dammit </em> --"</p>
<p>Wakefulness crackles over her like frost. Slowly, slowly, Marisa reaches under her pillow for her pistol. Slowly, slowly, she sits up and checks, in the moonlight, that it is loaded. Meanwhile her dæmon creeps through the air ducts on soft silent paws and heads toward her study. If there is an intruder in her flat, they will go there.</p>
<p>She closes her eyes, and her dæmon's sight flickers in the blackness behind her lids; her dæmon's hearing echoes in her ears.</p>
<p>Two young men stand at her desk, one of average height, perhaps in his late twenties, the other small enough to be a teenager. From the look of their clothing and the silver rings winking on their fingers, they must be Gyptians.</p>
<p>The shorter one speaks, and his voice has the high reediness of youth.</p>
<p>"She said, top right drawer."</p>
<p>Top right drawer. Her blueprints for The Station.</p>
<p>A swell of rage sweeps through Marisa, and her dæmon leaps out from behind the grate into the study and shrieks.</p>
<p>It does exactly what she would have hoped. The Gyptian boys startle and flee for the hallway. But they lock the study door after them -- <em> no! </em> -- and Marisa hisses with fury, and rises from her bed and stalks out into the hall to meet them.</p>
<p>She sees only one. Her dæmon, still shrieking and wailing behind a locked door, is of no help. The older Gyptian boy pelts down the hallway with his hawk dæmon flapping after him -- and Marisa aims, and fires.</p>
<p>She catches him in the shoulder. His dæmon goes down with him, a cry in both their throats. She keeps her pistol up and trained on him.</p>
<p>The younger one she marks as a loss. As long as she can capture one of them alive, it doesn't matter.</p>
<p>"Not so easy to escape me," she says in her best calmly arrogant voice. She cocks the pistol again and walks closer. "Who sent you, Gyptian boy?"</p>
<p>The Gyptian says nothing; the hawk's wings flutter. Her own dæmon rattles through the air ducts, desperate and furious. She aims for the Gyptian's stomach -- but the hawk flies up, the pistol misfires, the hawk screeches and tries to claw at her face. Marisa tries to bat the hawk away, waves her arms about wildly; if only there were a way to pin the hawk down, oh <em> where </em> is her dæmon --!</p>
<p>He jumps down from a high air vent and she can <em> feel </em> his vicious little hands in the hawk's feathers. The Gyptian struggles to his feet, but she has the advantage now; she whirls on him and strikes with her hands over and over, pins him to the cold marble floor, human and dæmon acting in concert, a perfect ruthless harmony.</p>
<p>Her blood <em> sings</em>.</p>
<p>The Gyptian groans. His hawk flutters uselessly under the monkey's hands. She takes a breath, crosses her arms -- takes a moment, among the rush of adrenalin, to be annoyed by the <em> hassle </em> all of this will be -- then puts her hands on the Gyptian's shoulders and leans down, pressing her full body weight against him, and whispers in his ear.</p>
<p>"I asked, who sent you, boy."</p>
<p>Aside from his rapid breaths and a single pained groan, the Gyptian is silent.</p>
<p>Fine.</p>
<p>She hauls him up by the shoulders and pivots them so they face their dæmons, keeping one of her arms tight across his chest. The hawk struggles again weakly, and the monkey presses the hawk harder into the floor; Marisa can almost feel the creak of the hollow little bird bones in her own hands, echoing through the quick percussion of the Gyptian's pulse.</p>
<p>"There is no way out of here," she tells him conversationally. She brings one hand up to play with his hair, soft and springy beneath her fingers. "So this is just you and me. Have you any idea how much pain I can cause you?"</p>
<p>Her dæmon's hand moves to the hawk's throat and shoves. The Gyptian whimpers, gasps, lifts a hand weakly to his own throat in response.</p>
<p><em> Got him</em>.</p>
<p>"You'll tell me everything," she breathes.</p>
<p>For a moment, all there is is the sweet, delicious feeling just before certain triumph. Then the Gyptian bucks in her arms, she feels a bright <em> smack </em> of pain across her face, and suddenly her dæmon's hands are just as empty as her own -- she turns on the floor to see the Gyptian standing, unsteady, the hawk circling his head in an uneven halo as he backs toward the open elevator shaft.</p>
<p>"I betray my family for no one," says the Gyptian.</p>
<p>He glances up, behind him, once. Then he topples over the edge.</p>
<p>"Oh, no! No!" Marisa gasps, stumbling forward on her hands and knees --</p>
<p>Then a sickening <em> crack</em>, and over the roar in her ears, a voice saying "Now!" --</p>
<p>Then, almost too quick to see, an uneven shape flying up along one of the lift cables. Marisa clutches the edge of the floor and cranes her head up just in time -- the shape resolves itself into two people, and two bird dæmons, one of which must be the Gyptian's.</p>
<p>It's not a lift cable, she realizes. It's a rope harness for climbing, set up in <em> her building</em>, that she knew <em> nothing </em> of.</p>
<p>And now the Gyptians have gotten away.</p>
<p>Furious tears spring to her eyes. She yells, once, wordless, and watches as a panel of gray opens in the black of the lift shaft ceiling and the four dark shapes disappear through it. Then she leans back from the edge and stands, and slowly walks back to her study.</p>
<p>Later, when she is calmer, she'll sort through her memories and realize that the voices her dæmon had first heard were not the voices of the Gyptians in the study. Later, when she is calmer, she'll call Boreal and commiserate with him over the frustrating turns they have each encountered in their line of work.</p>
<p>But it is now, and she is the farthest from calm she has ever been.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Twelve</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I aten't dead!</p>
<p>Sorry for the unexpected hiatus, guys. Hope you're all staying safe, and a happy new year all around.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>The thing about little gears in big machines is that it's all down to maths.</p>
<p>Adèle had a girlfriend once who worked as a welder and manufacturer in one of the many factories in London. It's a lot of precise and careful work, making all the little bits and bobs that go into all the other machines that power -- well, that power the rest of the world.</p>
<p>"It's amazing," Cynthia had told her. "Just a tiny little gear, but if you get the angle of the teeth on the gear wrong, by even a fraction? Then over time the tension gets so wound up from hitting wrong too many times that the whole thing explodes. That's a hell of an expensive mistake, not to mention dangerous. But all it takes is a millimeter's difference. Less than that, even."</p>
<p>Fascinating back then, in her first tiny London flat curled up together under a lumpy hand-knitted blanket. Encouraging now, in the cold silent dark of her cell.</p>
<p>Well. Almost silent.</p>
<p><em> Click click click </em> go the heels of the guards' boots on the marble floor; <em> click-click click-click click-click </em> go the clawed feet of the guards' dæmons. If Adèle closes her eyes just so, and rests her head on the metal door just right, then the clicks all come together --</p>
<p>-- like the ticking of a clock.</p>
<p>Big hand, little hand. Something that she can time.</p>
<p>Émile taps his feet softly on her wrist, her own heart measuring the beat. His wings are still crumpled, a little. It's harder for him to fly. But he can, and Adèle's head hurts less, and between the two of them they work out the rhythm -- between the two of them, they work out the pattern, and learn the sheet music.</p>
<p>Between the beats, there are rests. Repeat the measure. Continue through the piece. DS al coda: back to the previously designated point, then play through to the end.</p>
<p>Gears, and watches, and metronomes. Once upon a time Adèle used to play the violin. It's all about counting, and waiting, and then right before you come in, you breathe --</p>
<p>(A moment, a rest, a space in which to work. A slender pin from her hair careful in the lock.)</p>
<p>-- and play.</p>
<p>Math in music, math in gears, math in the whole world. With the last faint clicking of the guard's exit, the lock makes a soft sound and gently gives way. Émile draws a breath and tastes the air, and flutters up to her shoulder to keep lookout. She slips the pin back into her hair, eases the door open. Her shoes in her other hand, her stockinged feet silent on the floor, she creeps out into the hallway and follows the direction of the guard's path. There: the door, which -- for some reason she won't examine too closely -- opens at a touch.</p>
<p>The reason becomes apparent as she slips through. It opens into a stairwell, narrow, poky and dingy like nothing else in this facility. It must be the servants' stair: in use by no one else -- and yes, the guards must count as a kind of servant in the eyes of the Magisterium …</p>
<p>Adèle climbs the stairs, peeking through the crack in the door at each landing. She wants to rush, wants to scramble as quickly as she can to get out of here, but the idea of slipping and falling terrifies her. No, slow and steady, that's the way. Her legs start complaining at the fourth flight of stairs, and her breath burns in her lungs at the sixth; she soldiers on, knowing that if she stops for even a moment then it will be even harder to keep going. The seventh stair crawls by, and at the eighth --</p>
<p>At the eighth landing, peering through the narrow strip between the door and its frame, she sees daylight.</p>
<p>Émile flutters up from his spot on her shoulder to get a better look, hovering in place while Adèle collapses quietly into the wall. She closes her eyes, digs the heel of her free hand into the sockets, and presses until little green and blue stars burst behind the black. Through Émile's faceted eyes she sees more -- his range of vision in such a narrow strip is wider than hers -- and together they see a desk, with a black-jacketed Magisterium man sitting behind it, and standing in front of it two blonde women, one wearing black and the other pale blue.</p>
<p>Adèle's shaking breaths slow, and soon enough, the strains of conversation filter through the door.</p>
<p>"-- does not recognize New Danish law, Ms. Carlisle," says the man with increasing impatience.</p>
<p>"Nonsense," says a very familiar voice from the woman in black. Her bird dæmon shifts on her shoulder. "The Magisterium is a legal entity, isn't it?"</p>
<p>"Yes," and even from several meters away Adèle can hear the annoyance from the man, "but the woman has <em> Brytish </em> citizenship as well, therefore her detainment under <em> Brytish </em> law is what concerns us here."</p>
<p>"She's my stepsister," says the other woman, in another very familiar voice. "Please, isn't there anything you can do?"</p>
<p>The man sighs heavily.</p>
<p>"I'm sure there is some sort of legal precedent," says Tara. It is Tara, it <em> is</em>, Adèle is sure of it -- and when Émile flutters rapidly in place behind the door, Martin turns his head sharply and clocks them with his bright black eyes, and delicately tucks a lock of hair behind Tara's ear with his beak -- and then Tara sighs just as heavily as the man did, and puts her hands on her hips.</p>
<p>"I'm not leaving this spot until you've produced concrete evidence for why we cannot leave with Jenny's sister this afternoon."</p>
<p>"Ms. Carlisle …"</p>
<p>"You've got a back office right there, don't you?" Tara nods toward -- Émile strains his eyes to see -- yes, a small door tucked behind the desk. "Go check it. Right now. I am not leaving until you do, sir."</p>
<p>"I can call the guards --"</p>
<p>"Oh, certainly," Tara says calmly. "And then you can explain to the New Danish government why you are detaining two more of its citizens without a by-your-leave. I'm sure the press back home will be more than happy to expand on the story, and that the Cardinal will be overjoyed to hear of it."</p>
<p>The man smiles a tight smile.</p>
<p>"So. We'll just wait here while you find that paperwork."</p>
<p>"Of course, ma'am. Of course."</p>
<p>With a glare, the man disappears behind the door. Adèle, who slipped on her shoes the instant Tara started mentioning paperwork, edges her door open gingerly and walks out to meet Tara and Maggie.</p>
<p>Maggie grasps her hands tightly. As one, all three of them head for the exit.</p>
<p>The brightness of the sun is a yellow lance. For a moment, tears sting Adèle's eyes so badly that she has to stop dead in her tracks and close them; two sets of hands touch her shoulders in response.</p>
<p>"Home stretch," Maggie breathes. "You're almost there."</p>
<p>"You're doing so well," says Tara.</p>
<p>"Don't need to tell me twice," Adèle replies through the lump in her throat. She blows out a slow, shaky breath, then opens her eyes again. "Alright. Let's go."</p>
<p>A sleek black car idles by the front entrance. The driver's window scrolls down, and --</p>
<p>Adèle releases a shaky laugh. It's Agent Sterling.</p>
<p>Tara opens the side door and helps Adèle inside, sitting beside her, Maggie crossing around to the front passenger seat. Adèle fumbles with the seatbelt buckle but successfully closes it. The resulting <em> click </em> is quiet, but it seems to be a signal: the car engine roars to life, and they peel away from the sidewalk and into the busy streets of London.</p>
<p>"That went quicker than I thought," Sterling says.</p>
<p>"It's because I was waiting for you," says Adèle. It comes out in a scratchy pant, after her voice being unused for the last however long, but she can't be bothered to care. "I was behind that door looking for a moment to escape, and, well. There it was."</p>
<p>Maggie cranes her head around to look. Her eyes are crinkled with worry. "You weren't waiting long?"</p>
<p>"Ages," Adèle deadpans. When the worry tightens into real anguish, Adèle relents; she holds out a hand to Maggie, and Maggie squeezes it gently. "Less than a minute. Really."</p>
<p>At the same time, a brief shiver runs through her: Émile has alighted on Martin's shoulder.</p>
<p>He's a small bird, for all he's a bird of prey. Émile has to keep his wings folded, if he wants to keep his perch without brushing the tiny scales of his wings off on Martin's feathers.</p>
<p>"We're sorry," Martin says in a low voice. "We should have protected you better. We should have come for you sooner."</p>
<p>"I don't know if you could have done better," Émile whispers in reply. Then, hurriedly, as Martin stiffens: "I mean, it was Mrs. Coulter. What could anyone have done?"</p>
<p>"We could have done better," Martin repeats.</p>
<p>"I don't know. But -- you're here now. You came for us. I think that's what counts."</p>
<p>"Alright. We won't argue." Martin pauses. Adèle has been speaking quietly with Maggie this whole time, her mind half on each conversation, but now they come to a lull at once. The car is quiet. A different quiet than that of her cell, a warmer one, a safer one.</p>
<p>Tara puts her hand on Adèle's. Slowly, carefully, Adèle turns her hand over so their palms touch.</p>
<p>"You have to admit," Adèle says, "this will make a pretty good story."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. Arctic Sea.</b>
</p>
<p>"<em>Blame will help no one here</em>."</p>
<p>"<em>Me. It’ll help </em>me."</p>
<p>Those words rattle around Maggie's head every few seconds, and have done since before they left the London port. They were true when she said them, and they're true now, but in a different way from before. Before, terrified out of her mind that Tony was in danger and helpless to do anything to help him, blame helped to pin her energy on something -- to focus her emotions into anger, which had always been more useful than fear.</p>
<p>Then Tony returned to the boats just as dawn cracked over the sky, and behind him, supported between two of Ford's people, Benjamin.</p>
<p>In that moment all that existed was the warmth of her son in her arms, safe, whole. And Benjamin, injured but alive, and John Faa moving swiftly to take him in his arms just the same way.</p>
<p>Now here they all are on the ship headed to Trollesund, and Maggie has been wearing a hole in the floor of the passageway leading to Benjamin's bunk, and, well --</p>
<p>Well, blame is back, and this time Maggie's placed it with herself.</p>
<p>She should have seen the signs. This didn't come out of nowhere -- Tony's been following Benjamin around even more glued to his side since Billy's kidnapping; and she knew Benjamin would want to push for more information than the little they'd had before the roping, she knows that's why he did it, because she knows <em> him</em>. Looking back, it makes sense.</p>
<p>So why didn't she see it?</p>
<p>But she knows the answer to this one. She's been so blind with grief and fear for Billy that she hasn't been able to see a single other thing in front of her, with maybe the one exception of Lyra Belacqua. The rest of her family, she's shut out. No wonder Tony snuck away with Benjamin in the middle of the night. Why would he tell her a thing when he knew she had such blinders on? For that matter, why would Benjamin?</p>
<p>She knocks on the door to Benjamin's cabin, fully expecting not to get an answer. But Sura's soft voice says, "Come in," and Asher tugs hard on a lock of Maggie's hair with his beak; and then they're inside, and looking at Sura on her perch next to the bunk, and Benjamin's bandaged and splinted leg propped up on the foot of the bed, and his hands clasped tight together on his chest.</p>
<p>Finally Maggie meets his eyes. He smiles, or tries to.</p>
<p>"Hi, Mags."</p>
<p>"Hi, Ben."</p>
<p>He nods at her overcoat and scarf. "You can sit down and stay a while."</p>
<p>"Weren't sure you'd want me to." But her fingers move anyway, and she folds her scarf and coat together in a lumpy rectangle and holds it close as she sits on the little built-in bench along the wall. Benjamin rolls his eyes at Sura and then looks back at Maggie, and some of the tension leaves his mouth -- and Maggie's stomach doesn't quite feel like concrete anymore.</p>
<p>"Mags, if you're trying to tell me this is a pity visit, I will be cross, to put it lightly," he says. "Or if you think me telling you to come in is <em> me </em> pitying <em> you</em>, that's also inaccurate."</p>
<p>"It's not about pity."</p>
<p>"What is it, then?"</p>
<p>His voice isn't angry, or accusing. It's patient. More patient than she deserves.</p>
<p>"I should have been there," she says finally. "For you, for Tony. So you wouldn't have to sneak off in the middle of the night like that."</p>
<p>"For the record, I asked and he answered," Benjamin counters. He sits upright with a quiet grunt of pain -- Sura chirps softly and presses her head against his shoulder -- he strokes her wing gently with one hand, and redirects his gaze to Maggie again. "It was my choice to go, and it was Tony's choice to go with me."</p>
<p>"But --"</p>
<p>"Do I wish you'd been a little less sharp with Tony earlier? Yes," he says flatly. "But he's an adult now, which means he can make his own choices. And I'm John Faa's spymaster, Maggie, it's my job to find out these things. Even when it's dangerous. Especially when it's dangerous. You know that."</p>
<p>She does. Something in her expression must tell him that, even though the words stick in her throat, because he settles back against the pillows with another quiet grimace that, this time, eases into a smile.</p>
<p>"He's good, Mags. He was smart enough to get out on his own. He'll do fine."</p>
<p>"But you, Ben." Tears sting her eyes; she wipes them away. "What if those people of Ford's hadn't been there -- that Parker and, and Spencer? What would you have done then?"</p>
<p>"What I had to do," he answers, with deadly calm.</p>
<p>Ice crawls down her spine. "No."</p>
<p>"It's my job, Maggie. I walked into it with clear eyes."</p>
<p>"And if you'd fallen different and shattered your spine, you might have never walked again! Or if they hadn't been there, you might have -- it was luck they were there and luck you landed on your leg, Ben, <em> luck</em>, and now you're talkin' like you'd -- you'd --"</p>
<p>The words stick again, and this time she chokes on them.</p>
<p>"If it's what I have to do, then of course I'll do it," says Benjamin. He's still smiling, damn him, still calm as ice and smiling. "It's the job, Maggie. I volunteered. And maybe it was luck this time that helped us get away, luck that Ford's people were there. But maybe it wasn't, and if they hadn't been there my choice would have been the same. I wouldn't change a thing."</p>
<p>"You always were a stubborn one."</p>
<p>"Look who's talking," he retorts. It startles a laugh out of her. His smile widens.</p>
<p>"... Alright, try this on for size," she says after a moment. "You do what you need to do. But you also keep in mind it en't just John Faa needs you, it's Tony. And Billy. And me."</p>
<p>"That a promise?"</p>
<p>"It's the truth."</p>
<p>His eyes soften, and he tips his head back and then closes them after a moment. "Well, John won’t be needing me much at the moment, at any rate. Not with my leg still shot to hell."</p>
<p>"He'll need that mind of yours. That's the most important bit, anyhow."</p>
<p>"You mean it en't just dumb luck? Aw, Mags, I'm flattered."</p>
<p>"<em>Don't</em>," she says, ice running down her spine again. "Don't, it's too soon."</p>
<p>"I'm the one who almost died," he says. "I think I of all people am allowed to joke about it."</p>
<p>"Oh, ha ha, yes, nearly dying is <em> so </em> funny --"</p>
<p>"Better'n the alternative."</p>
<p>"<em>Everything's </em> better than the alternative!"</p>
<p>"You picked the wrong shape, Asher," says Sura in her soft deep voice. Benjamin's mouth twitches, and human and dæmon share a look before Sura continues, "Shoulda been a hen, with all the motherin' you lot are doing."</p>
<p>Asher lets out a wordless squawk of outrage, speaking for the both of them. But in the next moment, all four of them are laughing at the ridiculousness of it all; and some of the ice in Maggie thaws.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. Boston.</b>
</p>
<p>Nate might not be worried about Sophie, but Sophie is definitely worried about Nate.</p>
<p>He's always billed himself as an honest man, but there are ways of being honest, Sophie knows, that are better at deception than even the best lie can be. It's omission versus commission, she thinks. If you tell enough half truths, most people won't look for the rest.</p>
<p>It's true that they didn't choose this fight. It's true that it is a worthy cause, one that ought to be seen through to the end. And it is also true that, having worked on it piece by piece -- Keller and Vector and all -- they have the ability to actually take Moreau down.</p>
<p>But that's only the half of it. At the beginning of the Cuban Sandwich -- hell, at the beginning of this whole <em> thing </em> -- Nate had expressed a certain amount of discomfort with being assigned a job he had not chosen himself. He's always felt that way, Sophie knows. Ever since Dubenich.</p>
<p>So why lean into it now? Even if it is a worthy goal, why choose it now, when the original choice was not his to make?</p>
<p>Whatever is going on in Nate's head, Sophie can't read it. She trusts him with her life -- of course she does -- she wouldn't have made it out of Moreau's goon's hail of bullets in their home if she didn't -- but there's a blankness there now, a flat affect that she can't see through, and it worries her.</p>
<p>One of these days Nate is going to go too far. She doesn't want to be there to see it. But she wants to be absent even less. She could be far away from here on some tropical island, sipping cocktails, surrounded by her favorite art pieces, but she isn't. And she hasn't, for nearly three years now.</p>
<p>A choice, not a necessity.</p>
<p><em> Well</em>, she thinks, clinking her glass with Nate's, <em> to victory</em>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Thirteen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Made it by the skin of my teeth, but I made it. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone 💗 Have an extra-long chapter on me.</p>
<p>The dialogue in this chapter is almost entirely word for word from s3e15 of Leverage, The Big Bang Job. Content warning for description of drowning in the Present Philadelphia section -- to avoid it, skip from when Moreau says "Let's keep it short" to when Alec Hardison says "And what message."</p>
<p>Yes, Yasmin's dæmon is an opossum because she has to play dead. I am very pleased with myself.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. Boston.</b>
</p>
<p>"That's a lot of anbaromagnetic conductivity for a metal alloy," Lucille says, peering at the schematics that Yasmin is showing them.</p>
<p>"Yeah," says Yasmin's opossum dæmon.</p>
<p>"Does it blow up?" asks Charlie, keenly interested.</p>
<p>"Not everything blows up, Charlie."</p>
<p>Charlie makes a dismissive whistling sound. "Everything blows up, silly."</p>
<p>"No, it's just a metal alloy," Yasmin demurs. She continues talking, but something about Charlie's behavior is tickling Lucille's -- and thusly Alec's -- nerves.</p>
<p><em> Stop it</em>, Alec mouths to Parker. She mouths something back, but he can't quite decipher it.</p>
<p>Oooookay. Add that to the quickly growing The Hell's Going On? List that he started in London.</p>
<p>Nate interrupts to give Yasmin her disappearance package. Alec and Parker break off, but Charlie swoops up to perch on Parker's shoulder and chirps a few times, wordless. Lucille chitters back at her. Then Luke comes sailing over their heads in a burst of iridescence, effectively putting an end to the exchange.</p>
<p>"I called some friends in Europe," Sophie says as she walks over to the table. "Damien Moreau is running an auction at the end of the week -- two million dollar buy-in, high rollers only -- something about a Viper Tooth?"</p>
<p>"Yasmin's deadline was this week," says Nate. "That's not a coincidence."</p>
<p>"Time to notify the feds?" Alec asks.</p>
<p>"No, Atherton's too connected. No, we come at him straight on, he's just gonna call in some favor from an MP, and he'll skate on this whole thing."</p>
<p>"If Moreau was bothered by the cops," says Eliot, entering and circling around Sophie and Parker to get to his seat, "he wouldn't be staying at a downtown hotel in Philly."</p>
<p>"You're keeping tabs on Moreau?" says Sophie.</p>
<p>"I make it a priority to know where Moreau is at all times. So we can avoid him." Sophie's eyes flicker over him, but Eliot doesn't elaborate. He's still and tense, the way he usually is before a fight, and his voice reflects it. "Atherton was a general in the black ops. Moreau … well, he's Moreau. We need more time --"</p>
<p>"We've run out of time," Nate says.</p>
<p>"-- to prep this."</p>
<p>"No, we have to figure out exactly what this Viper Tooth is and where Moreau is gonna be holding the auction."</p>
<p>"Hey," says Alec, gently, carefully. Beneath the table, Lucille settles so her tail is a scant inch from Sarah's. "You cool, man?"</p>
<p>Sarah shivers all over, once, somehow pulling herself inward so her entire body contracts.</p>
<p>At the same time, Eliot looks at Alec and then away. His mouth opens and closes. His lip trembles briefly.</p>
<p>He speaks, but not to Alec.</p>
<p>"Nate, me and Hardison will hit Moreau. We'll get an invite to the auction."</p>
<p>Did no one else notice that? It can't just be him, right? But Nate continues like that weird little pause never even happened.</p>
<p>And because the other dæmons are on their humans' shoulders, none of the rest of them saw how Sarah flinched.</p>
<p>This has happened before. The detail niggles at Alec, troubling, and he files it away for later.</p>
<p>"Okay," Nate says. "You guys do that, and the rest of us will, uh, we'll find out what the hell this, uh, this Viper Tooth thing is. And, ah -- Sophie, who exactly can get into a government facility on short notice?"</p>
<p>"The prime minister, members of the defense ministry, and anyone from the cabinet or parliament."</p>
<p>"Alright, perfect. Nobody knows who their MP is."</p>
<p>Alec shrugs. "It's the MOD lab, so the best I can do is visitor passes, maybe media relations. Nothing classified."</p>
<p>"Alright, well, that'll get us in. Atherton will do the rest. Let's go steal the Ministry of Defense."</p>
<p>"Isn't that treason?" asks Parker, lingering on the word pointedly.</p>
<p>But again -- if Nate notices, he doesn't seem to care. "We'll give it back," he says, and that's the end of that.</p>
<p>Time to go to work.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. Philadelphia.</b>
</p>
<p>Maybe <em> easy </em> isn't the word for it, because it's getting difficult for Lucille to contain her restlessness when it comes to Eliot and Sarah and that trickles over into everything else, but it's fairly simple to get access to the hotel in Philly where Moreau is staying, and even simpler for Alec to slip over to the ground level kitchen and grab one of the food carts they use for room service. The hotel is the fancy kind where all the staff have to wear suits, so Alec doesn't look out of place in a white button-down and dark suit and tie, Lucille curled up in the stylish leather saddlebag he bought just for occasions like this.</p>
<p>Eliot is wearing his usual clothes, though, a black button-down rolled up and his stomping boots like always; Sarah, at his heels, isn't doing anything to make herself smaller or less threatening. They look like … them, not one of the dumb-but-harmless characters they usually play on a con.</p>
<p>It's on the tip of Alec's tongue to remark on it. But maybe it's nothing, and anyway, they have to focus.</p>
<p>Eliot dips his head slightly when Alec approaches with the cart; as his head moves, Alec can see two tiny braids on either side of his neck, almost hidden under the rest of his hair. "Moreau's having a party downstairs," he says. "Only way in is the service elevator."</p>
<p>"Okay. So here's the plan," Alec replies quietly. "We just gotta use this to get downstairs. And once we're there, I'm the middleman, you're my bodyguard."</p>
<p>"I'm your bodyguard," Eliot repeats. He pushes off the wall and walks with Alec towards the service elevator. "Okay, that's your plan, mm?"</p>
<p>Three guys in dark suits stand just outside the elevator door. The one on the right, a dude with a terrible soul patch on his face and some kind of bird of prey for a dæmon, holds out his hand. "What's this?"</p>
<p>Alec puts on his French accent and a smile. "Garçon, I am the manager of the kitchen, and I would like to personally deliver Monsieur Moreau's cuisine."</p>
<p>"Who the hell are you?" Soul Patch Guy says, nodding dismissively at Eliot as he steps up next to Alec.</p>
<p>"Me?" Eliot pauses for a moment. Then he says, "I'm Eliot Spencer."</p>
<p>Alec blinks. Hopes his expression doesn't change too much. But he can feel Lucille's lungs constrict, same as his own, even though she's curled up inside the little saddlebag at his side.</p>
<p>"Open the door," Soul Patch Guy says to the other goons. Then, to them, "This way."</p>
<p>The elevator door opens. Soul Patch Guy enters with them, and Alec abandons the food cart.</p>
<p>"Eliot, why'd you tell them your real name? Why'd you tell them your real name?"</p>
<p>But Eliot doesn't answer.</p>
<p>"Why did you tell them your real name, Eliot?" he repeats, desperate.</p>
<p>"Look, just stick close to me, okay?" Eliot mutters. "This might get messy."</p>
<p>The elevator stops moving, and they enter a pool area, pale greenish aqua and a cold chlorine scent everywhere. Even from the other end of the room Alec can smell booze mixed in with the chlorine -- scotch or brandy, or something else strong and expensive. Eliot walks in front; Alec sticks close to him, Eliot's words echoing in his head. There are more men wearing black, every one of them unholstering his gun as they pass, and girls in skimpy bathing suits clustered by the sauna. A <em> lot </em> of girls, in little gold lamé bikinis like they're some kind of set dressing instead of people.</p>
<p>The sound of guns cocking echoes through the wide room as the men surround them. Like it's a signal -- and damn, maybe it is -- the girls all leave the pool in a rush through a door on the left, their mostly bird dæmons fluttering in their wake.</p>
<p>One of the men steps forward, gets into Eliot's space. His jackal dæmon stands close to her human's heels, submissive like a dog, but something about her sets Lucille’s teeth on edge, and Alec feels a twin ache in his own jaw.</p>
<p>"Chapman," says Eliot, like he knows this guy.</p>
<p>"Eliot," says the man in an English accent, and add yet another item to what is rapidly just becoming the Hell List, because this scruff-jawed sandy-haired blank-faced mook is on a <em> first name basis with Eliot? </em></p>
<p>"They gave you the job?" Sarah asks softly.</p>
<p>"There was an opening," the jackal replies.</p>
<p>The sauna door opens, and a tall man in a bathrobe steps out of it. He has some sort of snake dæmon looped around his neck; as he walks over, Alec can feel Lucille's gaze sharpen on the snake, and almost immediately Lucille freezes.</p>
<p>The man's dæmon is a cottonmouth.</p>
<p>Once, when Alec was little and in a foster home before Nana's, he was playing in the woods outside the house and came across a cottonmouth. Other snakes, he knew even then, were more afraid of you than you were of them. But a cottonmouth would chase you even when it had no reason -- and that cottonmouth had. That snake had chased Alec nearly all the way back to the foster house, and had featured in his nightmares for months afterward.</p>
<p>He's twenty-four now: he's a man. But looking at that snake dæmon, some part of him resurfaces still six years old and terrified, and can't help but hate the man that dæmon belongs to.</p>
<p>"That's no way to treat an old friend," says the man with the cottonmouth dæmon.</p>
<p>The mooks lower their guns. The man approaches. He's taller than Alec, even, and Alec collects this tiny petty piece of information like a piece of kindling.</p>
<p>Eliot doesn't move. But Sarah -- Sarah, who is so good at being still -- Sarah's ears twitch once, twice, and the pettiness evaporates like steam, and real adult terror creeps over Alec like frost.</p>
<p>"Damien," says Eliot.</p>
<p>The man -- the man, Damien, <em> Damien Moreau </em> -- smiles at Eliot. "Let's catch up," he says affably, and claps his hands together.</p>
<p>There's more talking after that, a few words between Eliot and Moreau, but Alec's head is buzzing too loudly for him to make head or tails of it.</p>
<p>Parker told him once, carefully, handing him another puzzle piece of herself, that sometimes -- not often, but sometimes -- her brain turns into oatmeal: too thick and clumpy to do anything with. At the time Alec had filed that away as another Parker thing, like CAPD and not liking to be touched without asking first and dry cereal for every meal of the day. Now he is intimately familiar with oatmeal-brain. He is on a first name basis.</p>
<p>He is sitting in a wheeled chair with a pool inches behind him, with his right wrist and Lucille's neck handcuffed to it, the metal of the cuff tight and uncomfortable under her chin.</p>
<p>"You call this a plan?" Alec says to Eliot under his breath.</p>
<p>"I'm not handcuffed to anything."</p>
<p><em> Bully for you</em>, Alec and Lucille think together sourly.</p>
<p>Moreau brings his glass over. Alec rubs his face with his free hand and tries desperately not to fidget; he can feel Lucille's teeth grinding even in his own mouth with how badly she wants her Rubix cube.</p>
<p>No, more than that. She wants something to code, something to wire, something that might <em> fix </em> this. None of this makes any <em> sense</em>.</p>
<p>Or it makes too much sense, which is worse.</p>
<p>"You work alone," Moreau says, pointing. A ring flashes on his left hand.</p>
<p>Eliot says, "Things change."</p>
<p>Moreau sits, and sighs. "Don't take it personally," he tells Alec. "Takes me a while to warm up to people."</p>
<p>Alec waves briefly with his free hand, trying to come across more unflappable than he feels.</p>
<p>A girl in a gold bikini walks over with two wine glasses on a tray. "He prefers beer," Moreau says without taking his eyes off Eliot.</p>
<p>"Okay," the girl says, already turning. Alec makes a grab for one of them anyway. Moreau continues talking like he was never interrupted, his voice smug and calm and deliberate.</p>
<p>"This one of your retrieval jobs, Eliot? Tell me, whose Snoopy lunchbox do I have?"</p>
<p>"It's not a retrieval," Eliot says, shaking his head slightly. "I'm escorting the middleman. I'm contracted to make sure he gets in -- and out -- with the offer."</p>
<p>Okay -- okay, maybe Alec can still save this. He clears his throat. "Pardon. Monsieur, my client has heard of what you're selling and would like to acquire the Viper Tooth."</p>
<p>"And your client is?"</p>
<p>"If you indulge us with the details of the auction, we can make a bid. All will be revealed. I assure you, we are working in good faith."</p>
<p>"I'm sure you are, I'm sure you are, but I don't know you," Moreau says, pointing at Alec, who does his damnedest to keep his growing hatred off his face. Moreau pauses. "I do know you," he says to Eliot. The look on his face is almost fond. "We could talk."</p>
<p>Eliot shrugs slightly. "I ain't much on talkin', Moreau."</p>
<p>"Okay." Moreau puts down his glass and half shrugs, and stands. "Let's keep it short."</p>
<p>The cottonmouth dæmon springs forward from her perch on Moreau's shoulder to leap onto Lucille. At the same time, Moreau kicks the chair backward -- and with a yell, Alec, Lucille, and the snake go under.</p>
<p><em> Don't breathe don't breathe don't breathe! </em> But already his lungs are burning: he used up too much air with the yell of surprise, and the chlorine is everywhere and stinging in his eyes and nose and mouth, and the snake is wrapped tightly around Lucille and the cuff is biting into her neck and <em> oh God </em> is it just the cuff? Did Moreau's snake bite Lucille? Are they dead?</p>
<p>She thrashes, his heart and soul fighting for their life, and Alec fights too: he fumbles with the cuffs desperately, looking for a way to pick the locks, and pries his eyes open again despite the stinging of the water, despite the air bubbling out of his lungs. If he looks, he can pick the locks just like Parker showed him. If he can pick the locks, they can escape.</p>
<p>But he needs more air, he needs more <em> time</em>, and Lucille is still struggling. Alec fumbles with the pneumatic of the chair, bends awkwardly to bring the tube to his mouth, and the shock of stale air makes him choke -- too much and not enough all at once. But it's air, and it's about thirty more seconds ticking down like centuries now, and the anger surges back into him with the air, <em> why isn't Eliot coming </em> --</p>
<p>Out of the corner of his eye, Alec sees a set of keys land on the pool floor. The cottonmouth releases Lucille and darts away, back to the pool's edge.</p>
<p>Alec should be keeping track of it, probably. But all he can do is grab the keys, <em> go go go</em>, and unlock the cuff around Lucille's neck and then the one around his own wrist, and break the surface of the water with a gasp, and cling to his heart for a trembling moment before they gather themselves up and head for the pool ladder, and stand on shaking legs.</p>
<p>Moreau and Eliot are still standing where they were. Sarah, however, is moving -- she backs up carefully next to Eliot, just a step, until she's standing at his heel again. Chapman is off to one side, his face as blank as ever.</p>
<p>Alec buttons his jacket and pulls out his sopping pocket square, wipes his face with it. Not that it actually materially helps anything -- it really, really doesn't -- but at least water isn't actively running into his eyes anymore, and the ridiculousness of it makes him want to fly into a thousand pieces just a little less.</p>
<p>"And what message," Alec says, trying desperately hard not to shiver, "I should convey to my employer?"</p>
<p>Moreau laughs.</p>
<p>"I like this one," he tells Eliot, still chuckling. "Glad we could strike a deal. Reminds me of Belgrade."</p>
<p>"Come on," Eliot says to Alec, and they turn to the closest door.</p>
<p>"I lowered the chair and sucked the air from the pneumatic to give me an extra thirty seconds," Alec tells him. Eliot holds the door open as more girls pour out into the pool area, almost like he isn't paying attention, and that makes the chlorine air in Alec's lungs hurt all the worse. He keeps talking anyway. "That better be why you didn't come and get me, 'cause you knew I would do that, right?"</p>
<p>"Yeah Hardison, 'cause I knew you were gonna suck air out of a chair," Eliot growls.</p>
<p>"That better be why you didn't come and get me."</p>
<p>Eliot doesn't say another word. The hurt grows, and all the little things that have been balling up all this time roll together into a snowball, cold and hot and terrified and angry.</p>
<p>On some level he knows. He knows that this kind of secret is dangerous, and that must be why Eliot never told them a word of it. But Eliot's own words from two years ago echo in his head over and over, <em> you don't con your own crew</em>, and Alec -- Alec --</p>
<p>Alec is not a violent man, has never been and will never be a violent man. There's no <em> if </em> or <em> but </em> about it, no asterisk.</p>
<p>But they get out of the hotel through the service door, and in the empty alley, Lucille knocks into Sarah's shoulder and bowls her over, her still-wet fur bristling, her teeth bared, a snarl high in her throat.</p>
<p>Sarah doesn't fight it. She just rolls with the blow, landing on her side, and Lucille digs her claws into Sarah's thick lynx fur with no resistance at all.</p>
<p>She even goes so far as to bare her throat -- and that turns Lucille from mad to furious.</p>
<p>"What the <em> fuck </em> was that," Lucille hisses.</p>
<p>"I told you," Sarah says. Her narrow-pupilled eyes are locked on Lucille, but she's obviously addressing Eliot. "I told you we should have told them."</p>
<p>"Then why didn't <em> you? </em> If you knew you should have told us, why didn't <em> you</em>, Sarah?"</p>
<p>"Because," says Sarah. "Because I -- I --"</p>
<p>She shudders up into Lucille's touch, despite the sharp little needles of Lucille's claws pricking into her deeper with the motion.</p>
<p>"Because <em> what?</em>"</p>
<p>"I can't," she whispers. And, as one, Lucille and Alec realize that Sarah is shaking, a fine constant tremor all over her.</p>
<p>Lucille retreats. Then she shakes herself all over, hard, chlorine water spraying everywhere, and Alec drags his gaze back up to Eliot's pale face.</p>
<p>"You remember what happened on the dock in London?" Alec says, low and quiet.</p>
<p>"Yeah," says Eliot, just as quiet. "I do."</p>
<p>"How you were acting weird, and then me and Parker asked you about it, and you said don't? And Parker said Nate should know if he doesn't already, and you didn't say a single damn word?"</p>
<p>"Yeah, Hardison. I do."</p>
<p>"Ain't none of that this time. This time, you tell them."</p>
<p>This time silence stretches long between them before Eliot answers.</p>
<p>"Yeah, Hardison. I will."</p>
<p>"You better," Alec says. And he unbuttons his jacket and untucks his shirt, because seventy degrees Fahrenheit is too cold outside to be wearing a sopping-wet suit all tucked in, and they get a move on.</p>
<p>When they reach the rendezvous point, the others are seated on benches. Alec stops next to Eliot on his right side and gets right into it, without preamble.</p>
<p>They deserve to know.</p>
<p>"Tell them what you did, Eliot. Hm? You risked my life."</p>
<p>"We're in. Moreau's gonna give me the details of the auction tomorrow."</p>
<p>"You?" Sophie repeats. "Why is he giving you the details --?"</p>
<p>"I said we're in! Just make the plan."</p>
<p>Sophie blinks, disconcerted. And Alec realizes that it's going to happen again, that Eliot is going to paper over it just like there's nothing to talk about, <em> again</em>.</p>
<p>"Hey. Eliot worked with Moreau back in the day."</p>
<p>Sophie looks away. Parker looks at Sophie. Alec looks back at Eliot, expectant.</p>
<p>Sarah's ears are laid flat to her skull, a still-jarring contrast to Eliot's stillness, but for once Alec and Lucille are both too angry to care.</p>
<p>"A lot. <em> Tell</em>."</p>
<p>He sits next to Parker and glares up at Eliot. Nate stands.</p>
<p>"We've been chasing Moreau for four months," Nate says, sharp and cutting, "and you didn't tell us."</p>
<p>"Because I was trying to find another way around this --"</p>
<p>"Because what?"</p>
<p>"-- alright -- maybe take my shot before --"</p>
<p>"Because you're protecting him? Is that what you're --"</p>
<p>"I'm protecting you!"</p>
<p>Nate stops. He turns his head slightly, looking at Sarah with a sort of half shrug, which screams <em> well you sure did a good job of that, then</em>. Sarah shivers in place. But Eliot doesn't even blink.</p>
<p>"Alright, last time I checked, that's my job."</p>
<p>Nate lets out a sound between a scoff and a sigh. "Look, we can handle Moreau."</p>
<p>"We're out of our league, Nate. Every one of Moreau's men has innocent blood on their hands. Every one of 'em. Every one of 'em … are worse than me."</p>
<p>Eliot draws a breath.</p>
<p>"You think you know what I've done? The worst thing I ever did in my entire life, I did for Damien Moreau. And I. I'll never be clean of that."</p>
<p>"What did you do?" Parker asks softly.</p>
<p>"Don't ask me that, Parker," he says, not looking at her. Then he does, and the look in his eyes guts Alec like a knife.</p>
<p>"Because if you ask me, I'm gonna tell you. So please --"</p>
<p>His voice breaks on the <em> please</em>, and the knife twists.</p>
<p><em> Tell me</em>, says Moreau's smug voice in Alec's memory, <em> whose Snoopy lunchbox do I have? </em></p>
<p>And:</p>
<p><em> Reminds me of Belgrade</em>.</p>
<p>And then, Eliot's hoarse voice from less than a week ago, at the dock in London, dragging from the recesses of his brain like a nightmare:</p>
<p>
  <em> What do they do with the kids? </em>
</p>
<p>"-- don't ask me."</p>
<p>Parker nods.</p>
<p>"Look, we all have a past," says Sophie. "You don't have to tell us anything, Eliot. But we've learned the hard way we've got to be straight with each other."</p>
<p>Eliot looks at Nate. Nate folds his arms.</p>
<p>"Okay then. Okay," says Nate, a benediction, a mercy, and a little of the tension goes out of Eliot.</p>
<p>Okay.</p>
<p>Lucille climbs into Alec's lap. Alec holds out his hand to Sophie, and she gives him the notebook with the schematics in it.</p>
<p>He goes over it page by page, scanning the equations carefully and then all together. After a moment Lucille climbs up toward his shoulder, a second pair of eyes so they can think together. They get lost in it for a while, comparing the notes on the page with their memories, sorting it all; and then a specific memory stirs, from his research on Asriel Belacqua, and the pattern emerges … and he flips back to the last page of the notebook, the diagram of the human and dæmon in separate boxes, and the shiver runs through Alec and Lucille like they were in one body instead of two.</p>
<p>"… kill Atherton," says Eliot, answering a question Alec didn't hear.</p>
<p>"Kill Atherton?" Sophie repeats. "You can't. You're not that man anymore."</p>
<p>The growing realization of what he's seeing coats his insides with ice, a swooping freezing dread that climbs up his throat like nausea. He covers his mouth with one hand; Lucille squirms closer into his arms and presses herself to his chest in an attempt to comfort that doesn't quite work, the horror of it beating double time between them.</p>
<p>Nate says, "He might have to be. To get us in."</p>
<p>Parker goes tense beside Alec, her hands at her sides and her shoulders rigid. Alec notices it, because he's attuned himself to Parker like a radio antenna, but it'll have to wait until later. They have to know.</p>
<p>"So he can buy a guillotine?" he says, looking up at Nate. The others look at him, and he pries his mouth open again, but can't speak -- so Lucille speaks for him, quiet but clear and strong.</p>
<p>"Viper Tooth," she says. "It's a guillotine. That cuts dæmons away from their people."</p>
<p>Nate grabs the notebook.</p>
<p>And then, thank God, they're off.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Fourteen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content warning for the Present North section, which contains a non-graphic depiction of child death and cremation. To avoid it, skip the final three paragraphs in the section.</p>
<p>This part of the story doesn't really count as a fix-it. Billy might live, but a kid still dies. Take care of yourselves, folks.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. Outside Trollesund.</b>
</p>
<p>Lee never figured himself as much of a family man. Never figured himself for much beyond a balloon, really. Iorek's soul is in his armor, and Lee's -- well, Lee's is Hester, of course, but for all she's a hare with four feet on the ground, the two of them are never happier than when they're in the air.</p>
<p>Except for just today, bargaining with the king of the Western Gyptians with a worse hand than he'd thought, and a little girl with a fox dæmon bluffing better than Lee in his tightest corners. <em> Yeah</em>, he thinks, even as he tips his hat to John Faa, <em> I am definitely never playing cards with that kid. Not for anything more than matches</em>.</p>
<p>He might play her for matches, though. Just to learn something.</p>
<p>The Gyptians are heading onward already, but Lee's more than worn out his welcome in this town, so it's no trouble to pack up his gear immediately. Especially on account of as how Iorek is with them -- Iorek, big and grizzly and, okay, maybe not the exact same bear he was three years ago, but still Lee's oldest and dearest friend. Where Iorek goes, Lee goes. There's only a couple other people in the world as come close to having that kind of claim on Lee's heart.</p>
<p>John Faa mentions one that first night as they're setting up camp, and Lee and Hester both do a double take.</p>
<p>"Hang on a minute," Lee says. "You're sayin' Eliot Spencer told you to get my help?"</p>
<p>"He made a suggestion," Faa clarifies. He puts his hands in his pockets, and his hooded crow dæmon swoops down from the nearest tent to perch on his shoulder.</p>
<p>"But you didn't go looking for me."</p>
<p>"Spencer helped us. It would be foolish to ignore his advice outright. But it would be more foolish to spend energy searching, if you were not there to be found."</p>
<p>Lee nods. "Know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. Got it."</p>
<p>Faa huffs softly through his nose, the same scoffing sound he made this morning after Lyra made her bluff. "This is for higher stakes than a card game, Mr. Scoresby."</p>
<p>"Well, I am a businessman, sir," Lee replies. He shares a look with Hester; she rolls her eyes,  but nods, and he continues. "Havin' Iorek and me on your side evens the odds a little. And bein' as how I am a businessman, when I sign a contract I hold up my end. You'll get --"</p>
<p>"Gold for gold. Yes, you said."</p>
<p>"I figure a reminder won't hurt."</p>
<p>There's a brief, comfortable pause. Lee reflects for a moment on how nice it is to have an employer who's got a decent head on their shoulders.</p>
<p>"You and I both owe a debt to Lyra, then," says Faa contemplatively. "For pointing you in our direction."</p>
<p>"That kid is a stick of dynamite waiting to go off."</p>
<p>"No." Faa shakes his head. Something equally fond and exasperated goes into his eyes. "Dynamite goes everywhere, has no direction. That girl has both direction and purpose." He pauses again, and then says, more quietly, "Ma Costa says she has witch-oil in her soul."</p>
<p>"Witch-oil?" Lee scratches the back of his neck. "Well, that explains it."</p>
<p>"You are not the only one," Faa says dryly. "There is something about her that makes one want to adopt her."</p>
<p>"Having crappy parents will do that to you," Lee says, as neutrally as he can.</p>
<p>Faa tips his head slightly in acknowledgment.</p>
<p>"John Faa," says the kid's voice, and she comes up from behind Lee skidding to a halt, stumbling over her own legs like a colt, her dæmon an arctic tern wheeling overhead. "John Faa, Tony says witch cloud-pine comes from special trees they grow in a secret wood, is that true?"</p>
<p>"Farder Coram knows more about witches than I do," Faa says. He shares a look with Lee before turning back to the girl. "Why don't you ask him?"</p>
<p>"I didn't want to," Lyra says. Her dæmon lands on the hood of her coat and pulls a lock of her hair, sternly, an admonishment -- and the kid folds. "Pan said it wouldn't be polite," she admits. "Because of -- you know."</p>
<p>"Well, as I said, I don't know much about witches." Faa turns to Lee then. "Mr. Scoresby?"</p>
<p>Lee crooks a grin at him. Then he turns to face the kid.</p>
<p>"I've fought alongside a few witches in my time. Fought against 'em, too, on occasion."</p>
<p>"You've fought witches?" Lyra breathes, awed.</p>
<p>"Let me tell you 'bout the time …" Lee starts, steering the kid away from Faa and toward his and Iorek's tent, and -- yeah, Lee's never been much of a family man, but this, here, now? Yeah. This is good.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. San Lorenzo.</b>
</p>
<p>Hardison comes up with a squib of golden glitter, kind of like the blood squibs they use to fake wounds, for faking Eliot's murder of Atherton. Hardison uses a lot of geek-speak to overexplain it, the way he always does, but that's what it comes down to: a tiny packet that bursts on impact, and contains gold glitter that floats upward just like dæmon dust when a person dies.</p>
<p>"Just so long as nobody takes a good look at the roof of the car, or pats down the body for a hidden dæmon in his coat pocket, you'll be good," Hardison had said. Normally that would have been the point where Eliot snapped at him, growling back and forth in the same comfortable argument as always, but … for the last few days, it's been. Well. Weird is probably the least descriptive word for it. So Eliot doesn't snap at Hardison anymore.</p>
<p>Sarah is ignoring him. It's a giant <em> fuck you </em> and <em> I told you so </em> all rolled up in one, and it hurts just like it's supposed to.</p>
<p>Hardison isn't ignoring him, though, for all he has a right to. Nor is Parker -- and actually, Parker is the one Nate's paired him up with for this final con on Moreau. Maybe because Nate knows Parker's got less of a reason to hate Eliot. Maybe because of something else. For right now, Eliot doesn't care; for once, Eliot is tired of spinning out the what-ifs. He and Parker have a job to do, so they'll do it and worry about the rest later.</p>
<p>Never mind if the last words of Moreau's final telegram are etched in his brain.</p>
<p><em> By the way, a white hat really doesn't suit you, but I love the hair. I'll tell Marisa you said hello</em>.</p>
<p>No. <em> No</em>. No spiraling, he tells himself sternly, as Parker sings a note that echoes down the pipe, and she cheerfully confirms that it is indeed sixty feet deep. No spiraling. Focus on the job in front of you -- on the people in front of you.</p>
<p>He breaks out the wrench, but Parker touches his elbow -- pokes it, really, a sharp little jab to make him stop.</p>
<p>"What is it?" he sighs.</p>
<p>"Sandwich baggie."</p>
<p>"Sandwich baggie," he repeats. Then, when no explanation is forthcoming, "Do we need another one to insulate General Flores's radio? Or what?"</p>
<p>"No," says Parker patiently, "a mental sandwich baggie."</p>
<p>"Okay, I have no idea what you're talking about."</p>
<p>"Yeah you do. 'Cause it's the same thing I do. You take all the bad stuff and you zip it away in a sandwich baggie, so you can deal with it later."</p>
<p>"Parker," Eliot starts, but then stops short, because Charlie --</p>
<p>Charlie lands on Sarah's shoulder, and despite -- or maybe because of -- the way that Sarah goes stock-still, Charlie bends her head and delicately preens at the fur at the nape of Sarah's neck.</p>
<p>It's an expression of affection that Charlie has never shown before, and it causes a fine tremor to run through Sarah, and through Eliot, too.</p>
<p>It's probably the gentlest touch either of them have felt in years.</p>
<p>"Parker," he says again, around a sudden lump in his throat.</p>
<p>"Sandwich baggie," she repeats, gentler, and holds up the bag that contains General Flores's radio.</p>
<p>Right. Right.</p>
<p>"We'll talk about this later, though?" he dares to ask. " 'Cause Hardison --"</p>
<p>"Hardison's pretzels," Parker says, like that means something. Hell, considering what he just learned about sandwich bags, according to Parker-logic it probably does. "You're peanuts."</p>
<p>"I'm peanuts."</p>
<p>"Yup."</p>
<p>"That the same as pretzels?"</p>
<p>"Of course not, silly. Things don't have to be the same to be equal."</p>
<p>Oh God. Oh God, he just remembered what pretzels mean. The memory of coffee and bearclaws and bluejays comes back to him, and makes his heart stop.</p>
<p>That's what pretzels mean. So what do peanuts mean?</p>
<p>"Yeah, uh." He coughs, and tries to clear some of the rust from his voice. "We definitely need to talk about this later."</p>
<p>"This goes in a different baggie than the other thing," Parker says. "Not equal."</p>
<p>"Yeah."</p>
<p>"Right." She pokes his elbow again. Charlie flutters up to perch on Parker's shoulder, and Eliot feels every muscle in Sarah's body fighting not to chase after her touch. "You can do the thing now."</p>
<p>"Yeah."</p>
<p>Neither of them has asked, he thinks as he wrenches the pipe open and Parker slips the radio packet inside with nimble fingers. He begged them not to ask the worst thing he's done, and both of them, Parker just as much as Hardison, have a right to ask. But they haven't.</p>
<p>For all he's done to them, for all he's hurt them by keeping his past from them, they trust him.</p>
<p>"These people you are with now, would you leave any of them behind?" General Flores asks over the radio. "Ever?"</p>
<p><em> God help me</em>, Eliot thinks, looking at Parker, <em> I would die first</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. The North.</b>
</p>
<p>Lyra goes off in search of a ghost and comes back with something worse.</p>
<p>At first, when she climbs off the bear with a small cold dæmonless shape in her arms, terror strikes Maggie with lightning certainty that it is Billy who Lyra has found, and a raw scream threatens to rip from her throat. But no -- it is a different child, someone else's son, a little boy about Billy's age but whose name is Tony Makarios, and whose missing dæmon is named Ratter.</p>
<p>It is the only thing the boy says all night. Poor half-creature that he is, the only words that seem to come from his numb lips are, "Where's Ratter?"</p>
<p>Maggie stays with him. John Faa and Farder Coram and Benjamin are all holed up in Benjamin's tent, conversing in low voices about what this means; soon enough they will involve Scoresby and the bear, too, when it comes time to form a plan of attack. Tony -- Maggie's Tony, his Lyuba pressed tight to his side unmoving since the half-child arrived here -- is with Lyra now. And Maggie is with the half-child.</p>
<p>Someone has to be. He's only half of himself, but his ma's not here, and he needs <em> someone</em>.</p>
<p>She brings him soup, which he barely eats. She wraps him in a blanket, the worn quilt she brought from her own narrowboat. She gently lays him down on her bedroll and strokes his close-shorn head, and sings him the lullaby she used to sing when her own children were small and had just woken up from a nightmare.</p>
<p>"Hush, little one, just breathe …"</p>
<p>His breathing grows shallower. His pulse grows fainter. Awful selfish terror grips Maggie's heart, that this is the fate waiting for or already fallen on Billy, but it's pushed aside by rage that this is happening at all, to any child. That it has already happened to Tony Makarios.</p>
<p>"You can go to Ratter," Maggie whispers. His short hair is as soft as velvet under her palm, his pulse as light and fluttering as a bird under her fingers. "It's alright. You can go to Ratter now."</p>
<p>When they build the pyre for him, after Lyra has carved a coin with Ratter's name and put it in his mouth like an Oxford scholar, Maggie strikes the first match. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. San Lorenzo.</b>
</p>
<p>Alec really, actually, actively hates Damien Moreau. He hasn't hated many people in his life, not with this kind of boiling acid hatred, but Moreau deserves it. When Nate asked the team to help put him away for good, Alec could never have given any other answer than a yes.</p>
<p>Part of it is because of the dæmon guillotine. That thing is unnatural in a way that gives him nightmares. But the other part of it is the way that Moreau treated Eliot.</p>
<p>It's easier to examine the memories of those terrible two days in Philadelphia, now that they're in San Lorenzo with a full day's travel and three days' politicking to put some distance between then and now. Without fear hammering in his pulse like a drum, he can see now how casually Moreau twisted the knife in, in every single sentence he said to Eliot. Even his parting shot after Flores's arrest, <em> you know how these things are done</em>, seemed calculated to get under his skin. And that was just in two and a half days -- what must it have been like when he actually worked for the guy?</p>
<p>He … he can guess, from what he knows of Eliot, and from what he now knows of Moreau, what the worst thing Eliot did for Moreau might be. But he's never, ever, going to ask Eliot to confirm that suspicion. Despite the awful acid hatred in him that is willing to believe the very worst of Moreau, there's something at the bottom of his heart, that was maybe built into his bones from the very beginning, that believes in grace.</p>
<p>"Grace ain't earned," Nana told him once. "Nor forgiveness, nor love, though you might say they're three names for the same thing. It can't be earned, only given. That's the whole point of grace."</p>
<p>It's something to hold onto. Maybe one day he'll tell Parker and Eliot about it. He gets the feeling Parker might understand.</p>
<p>Parker ... who, hanging off the side of a train car in the wake of an explosion, cheerfully told him she was in the mood for pretzels.</p>
<p>He hasn't pressed the issue. Fact is, he just plain hasn't had the time -- they've all got too much to do. Chicken with its head cut off, one-armed paper hanger, pick your metaphor for busyness and Alec is it. And so are Parker and Eliot. Why add an extra thing to worry about?</p>
<p>Right now, Alec is grafting Eliot's new reporter identity, Ray Laroque, onto the Guy Hamilton alias he used for the Scheherazade job. That stirs up its own mess of memories, though, and for a moment in all the bustle and clutter -- just for a moment -- Alec indulges in some orange soda and a few seconds' worth of pity party.</p>
<p><em> You don't con your own crew</em>. First Sophie did it, then Nate, now Eliot.</p>
<p>But Sophie apologized, and Eliot … well, Eliot may not have said the actual words, but he's been saying sorry in one form or another for the last week.</p>
<p>And Alec remembers the thing about grace.</p>
<p>"Hey, thanks, man," Eliot says when Alec gives him the Laroque paperwork. "I appreciate it."</p>
<p>"Hey, this way you get to stick it to Moreau without ever having to see that dude's face again," says Alec. "I get it."</p>
<p>"Thank you," Eliot says again. He hasn't pulled the paperwork away from Alec yet, so Alec -- feeling uncertain, but trusting his instinct anyway -- takes his hand away from the forged visa and whatnot, and carefully sets his fingers on Eliot's wrist.</p>
<p>"Hey, man," Alec says, softer. "I get it. We're gonna bury this shithead."</p>
<p>It's an echo of what Eliot said about the fake psychic who hurt Parker a year ago, and from the startled look on Eliot's face, he seems to recognize the parallel.</p>
<p>"That -- I -- Hardison --"</p>
<p>He stutters to a stop, and looks at Sarah, at a loss for words. Sarah shakes her head at him, then turns to Lucille, who is already slipping down from her chair to meet her.</p>
<p>Lucille puts her little arms around Sarah's neck and presses her face close to that soft lynx fur, and the resulting purr that Sarah emits shakes through all four bodies, the same breath in all sixteen lungs.</p>
<p>Eliot's pulse pounds under Alec's fingers.</p>
<p>"I gotta go," Eliot breathes. His eyes are wide and impossibly blue. "I gotta --"</p>
<p>"Right." Alec releases him carefully, and Lucille reluctantly withdraws from Sarah. "The radio interview."</p>
<p>"We gotta talk about this later," Eliot says. "All … all three of us."</p>
<p>Alec nods, still slow and careful, trying not to spook him further. "Yeah, man. Whatever you want."</p>
<p>"Whatever <em> I </em> --?"</p>
<p>Eliot stops. For a moment he looks like he's about to cry. But he just shakes his head, mute, clutching the papers so tightly they crinkle together, and turns on his heel and leaves.</p>
<p>Lucille jumps up into Alec's arms, and without having to say a word, he digs into a pocket for her Rubix cube and gives it to her.</p>
<p>"We don't have time now," Lucille whispers. <em> Click-click-click-click</em>, <em> click-click-click-click </em> goes the cube in her paws. "But one way or another, it all ends when the election does in two days. We'll have time then."</p>
<p>"We will," he promises, and sets to the task at hand with a lighter heart, and renewed focus.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Fifteen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The first section, Present Bolvangar, depicts the point of view of an adult with a severed dæmon. Nothing graphic happens, but if that's not your bag, you can skip to the next section without having missed much in the way of plot.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. Bolvangar.</b>
</p><p>When Clara wakes, Mrs. Coulter has left with the surviving contractors. The airfield is vacant, and the buildings are silent; her footsteps, and the howling of the wind, are the only sounds. Even the ever-present hum of the anbaric is quiet -- whatever happened when the machine fritzed, it affected the entire lighting system. Clara's sight adjusts, before long, but all she sees are the corpses of those killed by the Gyptians and witches; her breath puffs in little white clouds before her, her only company. The best place you could possibly be is now empty.</p><p>No, not quite empty. Her dæmon, Nicolas, is still here. He must be.</p><p>She doesn't go to this part of The Station often. Her duties lie with the unsevered children, for the most part. Sister Betty is the one who takes care of the severed children and dæmons.</p><p>But Sister Betty is gone now. Clara saw her leave for the airship, before Mrs. Coulter found Clara and Clara fainted. Sister Betty is gone, and Dr. Cooper is dead, and Mrs. Coulter is gone, and Clara is the only one left.</p><p>… No, she isn't. The dæmon cages are all open, the children's dæmons are all gone, but there is movement behind one of the little mesh doors.</p><p>"Nicolas," Clara whispers. She crouches on the cold linoleum floor and touches the mesh. "Nicolas?"</p><p>His little snow-white face comes up to the door. His nose, which should be black and wet, is instead pale around the edges and looks painfully dry. A sign of sickness, Clara notes with a faint detached feeling.</p><p>"Clara," Nicolas says. His voice is a thin little thread. "You came back."</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"All the other dæmons left."</p><p>"Yes. But you stayed."</p><p>"Yes. This is the best place we can possibly be."</p><p>"Yes." But it doesn't quite feel like the truth anymore, and when Nicolas pushes at the mesh door with one paw, Clara helps him open it the rest of the way, and she gathers him up in her arms.</p><p>He shivers under her touch. He cannot seem to stop shivering. But then, it is years since they last saw each other; years since they were cut from each other. It is understandable.</p><p>"Is anyone else here?" Nicolas asks, after a while.</p><p>"Not that I have seen. But I haven't finished looking yet. I haven't gone to the intercision room."</p><p>It takes another while before Nicolas speaks again. "You should go, then. To find out."</p><p>"I'll take you with me. If you want."</p><p>Once, they had known each other so well as to know the answers to questions like this before they even had to be asked. Now, she is not sure of his answer. He is still shivering. Clara struggles to take off a glove, then presses her bare hand against his fur.</p><p>He is so soft. The softest thing she has ever felt in her life.</p><p>She has missed him.</p><p>"I do not want to go back there," Nicolas says softly, mechanically. "But I would like to be with you. I … would like not to be alone."</p><p>So she stands, his cold shivering body still in her arms, and she tucks him into her coat close to her heart, for warmth. And together they go to the intercision room.</p><p>More of the contractors lie on the floor of the hallway leading to the room, their wolf and hound dæmons gone: vanished, dead. The absence of a dæmon doesn't mean life or death to Clara anymore, but during her time at The Station she has gotten very good at discerning a lack of breath and pulse.</p><p>But among the bodies in the hall, something moves. No -- someone.</p><p>Clara steps carefully between the bodies. The someone is Dr. Rendal slumped against the wall, and the movement she spotted is his dæmon, weakly struggling within the breast pocket of his lab coat.</p><p>Clara watches in silence as she emerges, her tiny clawed feet catching at the coat fabric. The white stripe down her back is a bright visually-pleasing contrast to the drab brown color of her scales; Clara had thought that green anole lizards are called that because they are supposed to be green, but she has never seen the doctor's dæmon any other color than brown. Perhaps that's normal for her, just like the tiny black spots just behind her eyes.</p><p>"Hello, Gertrude," Clara tells the dæmon. Then, to the doctor, "Hello, Dr. Rendal."</p><p>"Paul," Gertrude whispers. With great effort, she climbs up to Dr. Rendal's shoulder and presses her little body against his throat, to feel the steadiness of his pulse. "Paul, wake up."</p><p>For a moment, he doesn't do anything. Then his eyes flutter open, a groan pushing out of his throat at the same time. Distantly Clara thinks that it probably hurts to make a sound like that. Then again, as he moves his head, a dark red stain becomes visible on the wall behind him, so that explains it. She hopes it is not a concussion.</p><p>It takes a moment for his gaze to focus on her, but Clara waits. She is good at waiting.</p><p>"Sister Clara?" he croaks. Then, "Oh, and ..."</p><p>"Nicolas," Clara supplies.</p><p>"Nicolas. Yes. Forgive me." A shadow passes over his face, an expression of terrible sadness and guilt. "Forgive me," he repeats.</p><p>Clara cocks her head to one side. "Why?"</p><p>Gertrude turns to look at them, still pressed against Dr. Rendal's pulse, and a quiet keen issues from her, sounding just as grieved as her human.</p><p>"We shouldn't have done it," Gertrude says. "We thought it was for the greater good, but it isn't."</p><p>"It is," Clara says automatically, or rather, <em> starts </em> to say, because the words freeze in her throat like the northern air. Because Nicolas is still shivering, and still cold in her arms, and she loved him so much and it wasn't just a little cut, was it, it was more than that, it was worse.</p><p>"This is," she says, and stops, and starts again. "This is not the best place you can possibly be."</p><p>Dr. Rendal's eyes are wide and miserable. "No," he says. "It is not."</p><p>"I don't know where to go."</p><p>"Away from here," he says. "Did -- is anyone else --?"</p><p>She shakes her head. "You're the only person I've found alive who stayed here. Everyone else already left on the airship with Mrs. Coulter."</p><p>He shudders at the mention of her. Understandable, Clara thinks again.</p><p>"This was wrong," he murmurs. He stands unsteadily, sways, and Clara reaches forward to catch him one-handed, before he falls. "All of this was wrong."</p><p>"You're injured," she tells him. "Likely concussed. You should rest."</p><p>"Can't stay here," he says to himself. "Need to fix it. Need to tell everyone what she made us do … what we did."</p><p>"You need to rest, Dr. Rendal."</p><p>"Paul," his dæmon says, with such love in her voice that it is Clara's turn to shiver. "Paul, we'll fix what we can, but we have to rest first."</p><p>"And then we'll leave this place," Nicolas says. "We'll go with you. We'll help you."</p><p><em> We will? </em> Clara almost says. But she doesn't want to question him. He has been gone from her for so long.</p><p>And -- if Mrs. Coulter will not have her, then at least Dr. Rendal has not turned them away; and all Clara wants, all she has ever wanted, is to be of use.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Present. San Lorenzo.</b>
</p><p>So. Now Nate knows what it's like when Eliot snaps.</p><p>The loose thread finally unraveled itself that day in Philadelphia, and then a whole other section of fabric began to fray. Now, however, he has all the threads in his hands, and this time he's the one who will determine the pattern.</p><p>Aoife can't smile. Not physically, anyway, not the way some other dæmons can with their eyes if not their mouths. But Nate can feel the contentment radiating through her like sun rays. They're always at their best when they have a plan, and the most satisfying thing in the world is seeing his team bring that plan to life.</p><p>Not that there aren't bumps in the road.</p><p>Then again -- and not that he would ever mention this to any of the others -- it's … actually pretty fun to encounter a bump in the road. Just like going too quickly over a speed bump is bad for a car but sends his stomach briefly flying, so does having a new difficulty crop up in the course of a job cause Nate's brain to light up like so many fireworks.</p><p>Sophie's attachment to Michael Vittori was one of those speed bumps. But as much as it rattled him, it also sent his brain flying -- and Nate was never gladder of any of Hardison's gadgets as he was yesterday, when the fake dæmon glitter squib went off to convince everyone of "Rebecca Ribanez's" death.</p><p>And now Moreau is screaming behind bars, still unaware of who Nate is beyond his own worst nightmare, and the son of a bitch is never going to be able to fund anything ever again, because Ribera is rolling around in that money now.</p><p>Nate contemplates, again, the aptness of dæmons. Of course Ribera's would be a cuckoo bird. A thief, but an obvious, garish thief. And then he smiles, because Charlie is a magpie, the stylish kind of thief, and last night before everyone turned in he saw the particular light in Parker's eye that means someone is about to be missing a whole lot more money than they did the day before.</p><p>And now, this morning …</p><p>He wakes up with the warm weight of Sophie pressed against his side, and has just enough presence of mind to keep that knowledge to himself after Eliot breaks down the door.</p><p>"I don't care, man," Eliot says, looking lighter and freer than Nate has ever seen him. "Moreau's gone. Things are back to normal."</p><p>He taps the doorway with his fist and practically bounces away -- and so does Sarah, looking just as light.</p><p>"Something's different about them," Aoife says, sleepily, from her spot on the bedside table. "Something's … changed."</p><p>"You mean Moreau," says Nate.</p><p>"No, something else."</p><p>"Whatever it is, it can wait," says Sophie's voice, muffled under the cover. She pulls it down from over her head and sits up a little, blows a strand of hair out of her face. "Uh-oh."</p><p>Nate tries not to make a face. The silence stretches long and awkward, and then it breaks apart into snickering from both of them.</p><p>"Can you imagine if Eliot had --"</p><p>"We'd never hear the end of it."</p><p>"It would be a long trip back to Boston."</p><p>"Oh, God, don't say it."</p><p>They sigh at the same time. Luke flitters up to Sophie's shoulder and busies himself tidying her hair, in the kind of brief fussy movements that he only does for her when they're alone.</p><p>"We'll just keep this to ourselves," Sophie says. "It's not that it's a dirty little secret --"</p><p>"-- It's just easier to keep things professional," Nate finishes, nodding.</p><p>"Exactly."</p><p>"Good."</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"Right."</p><p>They fall into comfortable silence, and Nate smiles to himself.</p><p>Talk about a bump in the road.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Present. Trollesund.</b>
</p><p>Two memories replay themselves over and over in Marisa's mind. It is now two full days after The Station fell to the Gyptians and witches -- there are many things that she could be thinking of, <em> should </em> be thinking of -- but these are the ones that her mind cannot let go of.</p><p>Three voices, high and loud and desperate and joyful.</p><p>"<em>Billy!</em>"</p><p>"<em>Billy!</em>"</p><p>"<em>Tony! Ma!</em>"</p><p>Three shapes had collided together in the ruins of The Station, their arms all wrapped around each other, clinging and weeping and talking over each other all at once. The sense of the words dissolved, but she recalls the feeling in them, the bright searing happiness; it hurts to remember. Even in the freezing cold air, even from her hiding spot several meters away, she could still feel the warmth of that happiness like the warmth of a roaring hearth fire.</p><p>But if the first memory is burned into her mind's eye, the other memory is burned into the very bottom of her soul.</p><p>More voices, echoing, one of them dearly familiar -- but speaking to someone else.</p><p>"<em>Lyra?</em>"</p><p>"<em>Lee!</em>"</p><p>Her daughter had flown into the arms of a tall man Marisa had never seen before, and Pantalaimon had practically bowled over the man's hare dæmon; they greeted each other with more affection than Lyra had ever shown Marisa in all the time they lived together. However Lyra thinks of Asriel, this man is more of a father in her eyes -- a man she can't have known for longer than a month altogether.</p><p>Less than a month, and that man is already dearer to Lyra than her own father and mother.</p><p>Jealousy, that small spiny creature so familiar to Marisa, lodges itself in her breast once again.</p><p>She doesn't know who the man is yet, but she will. Soon.</p><p>He is an aeronaut, this much she knows. An aeronaut who has been traveling with Gyptians and a panserbjorn. He cannot be hard to find. She will send out her feelers here in Trollesund -- if he came to The Station, he must have come through Trollesund first -- and she <em> will </em> find out who he is, and where he has taken her daughter.</p><p>And then she will get Lyra back, no matter what stands in the way.</p><p>She watches the Magisterium soldiers buzz between the airships like bees, and thinks of what she will do to the aeronaut once she's caught him.</p><p>Then she spots Hugh MacPhail, and curiosity draws her to him, moth-like. There must be a reason he has come all the way up North, when usually he does not venture further than a half-day's airship ride from London.</p><p>It is not a good reason.</p><p>Iofur, dead. The knowledge forms a pit of ice in her stomach. She did not like the bear, she thought him annoying and weak in addition to dangerous, but he was a necessary tool in her arsenal, and now he is gone. That, and Moreau permanently neutralized, and The Station in ruins …</p><p>Marisa keeps her cool, but only just. It makes her reckless: when Hugh begins to talk of Asriel, she leans close to him, speaking low and soft like she might with Asriel himself. Hugh has never shown any signs of temptation, but that does not mean it is not there, hidden below the surface.</p><p>"I seek only devotion to the Magisterium," Hugh says slowly, when Marisa has finished making her promises.</p><p>"The Magisterium has my devotion," she answers.</p><p>Hugh touches her chin with one hand. The gloved fingertips are four points of cold against her skin.</p><p>He tips her face towards his own with the same deliberate care that he does everything else, and tilts his own head closer to hers.</p><p>It is the first time he has ever touched her. She had thought, once, that if he ever did, it would be the result of a loss of control on his part; instead it is just another expression of that control.</p><p>They were already close enough to kiss, and now they are sharing breath.</p><p>Marisa waits. Hugh doesn't keep her waiting long.</p><p>"You do understand what I'm saying," he says. "Asriel needs to die."</p><p>First Lyra gone, now Asriel marked for death. And this on top of all her other losses. Marisa watches, breathless and frozen, as Hugh turns and walks away. Her sole comfort is that her own dæmon gives none of it away -- thank God, thank God he knows better -- but it is a cold comfort indeed.</p><p>"Hm," she says to herself, very quietly, and turns to look at her dæmon -- and smiles, cold and grim, at the expectant look he gives her.</p><p>Yes, she'll figure something out. She has to.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Present. San Lorenzo.</b>
</p><p>There's a bit of time between Ribera resigning and Ribera settling into his retirement. It's a time when things get moved around, furniture and art and too many alcohol decanters, and it's also a time when people in uniforms walk around multiple buildings with clipboards and boxes. It's a little like jenga. Or like a balled-up piece of paper under three different mugs.</p><p>Moreau's villa is only slightly more difficult to crack than the Boston Museum of Art and Antiquities. Honestly, it's kind of insulting.</p><p>She waits for the items to be exposed, then makes her move.</p><p>She could call Eliot to help her, because Eliot is the one who inspired the idea, so to speak. Or she could call Hardison, because Hardison would know where she's coming from with the whole thing and would probably jump on the chance to help out. But this is something that Parker wants to do alone -- or, well, as alone as anyone can get, with a dæmon.</p><p>Hardison asks, as they load up her baggage, whether she’s got some of Moreau's gold bars packed away in there. She just gives him a look.</p><p>"We'll do this on the boat," she tells him. "Everyone gets crabby on the boat. We'll need a distraction then. This?" She taps the enormous box with her souvenirs in it. "This will be a good distraction."</p><p>"Wh -- crabby? I do not get crabby. Lucille, girl, tell her, I do <em> not </em> get crabby."</p><p>"You do," Lucille says.</p><p>"Traitor," hisses Hardison, without any heat.</p><p>"Distraction," Lucille reminds him, and he turns to Parker again, his eyes wide. He clears his throat once, twice, and Parker waits for him, her heart glowing.</p><p>"Dis … distraction," he says. She smiles. "Okay. Okay." He nods and claps his hands together. "I can do that. Yeah. Yup. <em> No </em> problem."</p><p>"Where's Eliot?"</p><p>"He's getting Nate."</p><p>"Oh."</p><p>"Yup."</p><p>The elevator door starts to close, but Parker holds it open. In another moment, Eliot practically skips inside, Sarah close behind. Then the elevator door closes, and between the six of them and Hardison's luggage and Parker's souvenirs, there's not very much space; but for the first time in four months, they've got enough room to breathe, and for the first time in forever, Parker feels comfortable closed in on all sides.</p><p>"It's over," Eliot says, like he can't quite believe it. "It's finally over."</p><p>"Yeah, man," says Hardison. His eyes crinkle at the corners. "That guy's buried so deep he's shaking hands with dinosaur fossils."</p><p>Eliot throws back his head and laughs, and Parker’s heart glows even brighter.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Sixteen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A lot of feelings that have been a long time coming, and the teensiest bit of plot.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. San Lorenzo.</b>
</p>
<p>Okay, so it's <em> not </em> over.</p>
<p>They barely get to the ship that was supposed to take them back to Boston when a courier comes up to them with a telegram for Nate, sent all the way from Trollesund. The message itself is cryptic, but Nate's face goes first white, then red, then white again, tense, mouth pressed together in a thin line, brow creased -- the expression that Alec has privately labeled Nate's "Avenging Angel" look, on account of how it's the same exact look St. Michael gets in all the iconography where he's righteously smiting the Devil.</p>
<p>He's only seen it a couple times before, but he knows exactly what it means, because there's only one thing in the world that gets Nate like this.</p>
<p><em> Retrieved package partially intact. Meet in E.A. Fens to discuss contents. BdR</em>.</p>
<p>"Partially intact could mean anything, Nate," Sophie says in a low voice. "It could mean they're hurt somehow but still alive."</p>
<p>"Or it could mean some of them are dead."</p>
<p>"We don't know that," Parker says. She folds her arms up tight, not to make herself smaller, but to make herself sturdier, her feet planted shoulder-width apart, her shoulders back, Charlie perched on her right shoulder fluffed-up big. "All we know is there was a complication involved in getting the kids, and Benjamin de Ruyter and maybe some of the other Gyptians want to meet us in East Anglia to talk about it."</p>
<p>"He said they retrieved the package, Nate," Eliot adds. His voice has gone rough the way it did in Philly, and Alec's heart twinges painfully at the sound. "So whatever's happened to the kids, the Gyptians found 'em. They're gonna be alright now."</p>
<p>"And we're gonna help 'em, now Moreau's outta the way," Alec says.</p>
<p>"Hell yeah," says Parker. "No more imaginary Italian lady telling us what to do."</p>
<p>Everyone turns to look at her.</p>
<p>"Imagi -- Parker, you met her," says Eliot, perplexed. "You <em> saw </em> her. We all did, she met us here on the quay when we first came to San Lorenzo."</p>
<p>Parker shrugs. "I've seen all sorts of stuff that wasn't really there. Wouldn't be the first time."</p>
<p>"Night-ghasts," Charlie says sagely.</p>
<p>That causes a shiver to go through all the other dæmons; even immutable Aoife briefly rearranges her forelegs.</p>
<p>Luke says, "Charlie, you've seen a night-ghast?"</p>
<p>"More than one."</p>
<p>"<em>What?</em>"</p>
<p>But they don't stay off-track for long. Nate forcibly drags them back to the subject at hand, and they commandeer a different ship chartered to go to London.</p>
<p>It's not over. But man, when it is, Alec is gonna sleep for a <em> week</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. North Atlantic Ocean.</b>
</p>
<p>There are so many things to do, and so many of them need to be done all at once. Maggie finds herself running back and forth across the length of the ship so many times she could find her way blindfolded; she takes a moment, between errands, to remember the logistics discussion before the voyage and to be glad that John Faa decided to allow noncombatants to come along. After all, <em> someone's </em> got to take care of all the children.</p>
<p>The children -- some of whose parents are here, and some of whom have no parents to miss them, all of whom are a tight-knit gaggle -- an assortment of Gyptians and landlopers who have become their own family. In Bolvangar the children were separated by gender, but that didn't stop them from forming friendships anyway. Billy chatters Maggie's ear off about not just Roger Parslow, but Annie and Bella and Bridget.</p>
<p>Bridget is one of the severed children. She holds onto her rabbit dæmon tightly, less like a living thing and more like a stuffed toy, but the little dæmon never seems to protest, only shiver himself closer into her touch -- as though both of them are trying to make up for the lost connection between them. When Maggie tucks Billy in at night, he tells her about Bridget, about how he was scared at first, but now he's only sad. How Hannah will cuddle close with Bridget's dæmon, and how Billy will hold Bridget's hand and tell her stories.</p>
<p>Her brave, good, strong boy.</p>
<p>In a rare moment of respite, in a corner of the galley, Maggie tells John Faa about it; how the severed children are adapting, how the whole children are learning. John watches her with careful eyes, and when she's finished speaking, he reaches out one hand to carefully cover hers.</p>
<p>"It gives me comfort," he says at last, "to know that these children will have a place somewhere. Even if their families do not want them."</p>
<p>Maggie nods. "Where there's life, there's hope."</p>
<p>His hand is warm on hers. After a moment, she slowly turns her hand over so they lay palm to palm.</p>
<p>They held hands once before, in the forest in the North, taking the children from Bolvangar back to the camp. That was glove to glove, though, their dæmons flying together overhead, the winter cold nipping at them with sharp teeth; this is sitting at the narrow table in the ship galley, their dæmons on their shoulders, the warmth of his hand immediate.</p>
<p>He'll not push, she knows. John Faa takes care in everything he does, and this is no different.</p>
<p>"There is much yet to do," he says quietly. "There won't be time for much else. Not for a while."</p>
<p>"Best to continue on as we have, then," she says, nodding again.</p>
<p>His eyes flick up to hers. "Is that somewhere you want to go?"</p>
<p>She opens her mouth and then closes it, and then huffs a quiet laugh.</p>
<p>"John Faa," she says, "you know me. If it wun't something I wanted, you think I'd keep quiet about it for longer'n two seconds?"</p>
<p>It's his turn to laugh, warm and breathless and wry. Her heart lights up at the sound.</p>
<p>"No, Maggie Costa," says John, "I reckon you wouldn't."</p>
<p>So that's that sorted out, then.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. Alboran Sea.</b>
</p>
<p>Parker prefers airships, especially by now; the sea-smell is bad enough, but she's getting really tired of the noise. All things considered, once this job is done she'll have had enough of seas and oceans for a lifetime. But there's one benefit to going by sea instead of air that she can't argue her way around, and that's that it's much easier to smuggle items that are heavier than they are big.</p>
<p>Precious metals, for example.</p>
<p>They're rounding the edge of Portugal, a full day into the voyage and reaching the point where Charlie starts grooming her feathers ragged, when Parker decides that now is the perfect time to show the boys her San Lorenzo souvenirs. She takes them down to the hold, small and dry and far enough from the engine to have a bit of quiet, and flips on a portable anbaric light so she can show it off to full effect.</p>
<p>"Moreau's gold bars! I was <em> right</em>," Hardison says, and reaches out to Lucille for their handshake. "Hell yes!"</p>
<p>"That's not all," says Parker. She holds up the envelope she'd slipped into the packaging and wiggles it enticingly. "This is even better."</p>
<p>The boys look at each other. Then they turn back to her and say, at the same time, "Better than <em> gold?</em>"</p>
<p>"You guys think lots of things are better than gold," Parker says.</p>
<p>"Yeah, but <em> you </em> don't," says Eliot.</p>
<p>Charlie nips Parker's ear: a silent reminder not to deflect the way she usually would. She shrugs her shoulders in annoyance, but doesn't do anything that would actually dislodge her.</p>
<p>"Well, <em> some </em> things are better than gold," says Parker, "and this is definitely one of them."</p>
<p>She brandishes the envelope again, and this time, Hardison takes it and carefully opens it.</p>
<p>"Pictures?" he says, frowning with curiosity, as he takes out the first Polaroid. Then his expression clears, and then it lights up with incredulous delight. "No ..."</p>
<p>"Let me see," says Lucille, and Hardison angles the photograph towards Lucille and Sarah and Eliot, and Eliot takes it and holds it in place.</p>
<p>"That's a photo of Charlie on the gold bricks," says Eliot, though he pitches up his voice at the end like a question. Then he squints. "Is that -- are y'all in the Tombs?"</p>
<p>"Uh huh," says Charlie.</p>
<p>Sarah makes an inarticulate sound in her throat, softer than a purr but just as pleased, anticipatory. "<em>Please </em> tell me there are more photos," she says, looking up at Hardison.</p>
<p>"Hell yeah, girl," Hardison replies. He draws out two more Polaroids -- and immediately hands them both to Lucille, who holds them carefully in her paws even as she shakes with laughter; Hardison claps his now-free hand to his mouth and lets out his own inarticulate sound, though this one is closer to a squeak.</p>
<p>It's the same sound he makes when he's just finished untangling some complicated tech thing. The sound runs through Parker like the feeling after drinking chocolatl on a cold day, hot and sweet and lingering. A wide smile spreads across her face in response, and she doesn't even try to hide it.</p>
<p>"Oh <em> hell </em> yes," says Hardison.</p>
<p>Then he and Parker both look at Eliot.</p>
<p>He's got one hand still holding the first photograph, low at his side. The other hand is curled in a fist, pressed to his mouth but not covering it fully -- not enough to hide the slight, trembling smile on his lips that sets off the warm, crinkling smile in his eyes.</p>
<p>The hot chocolatl feeling in Parker spreads.</p>
<p>"Oh my God," Eliot says, muffled against his knuckles. He moves his fist to his chin and speaks again, clearer; and now Parker can see the bright red flush on his cheeks. "You carted all that gold down into the Tombs so you could pose with it in front of Damien Moreau and take photographs of his reaction."</p>
<p>"In beautiful, beautiful Technicolor," Lucille adds.</p>
<p>"You're evil, woman," says Hardison. She looks at him sharply, but the expression on his face matches Lucille's -- admiring, and something soft and bright that she's seen before but not quite put a word to yet. "I love it."</p>
<p>Eliot says, "You didn't have to do this, Parker."</p>
<p>"Duh, of course I did." She rolls her eyes. "The gloat is like, half the fun of the whole <em> thing</em>. I wasn't gonna rob Moreau's villa and then <em> not </em> let you see the look on the guy's face, c'mon." She makes grabby hands, and the boys and Lucille hand back the photos and the envelope, Lucille taking care to neither brush Parker's hand nor smudge the photos in her little paws. Parker stuffs the photos back inside, seals the envelope, and sets it on top of the box of gold bricks.</p>
<p>"Better than gold?" she asks them.</p>
<p>Eliot drops his head for a moment, then sighs, then laughs, then nods. "Yeah. Yes. Yes, Parker, that was better than gold."</p>
<p>"<em>Hell </em> yeah," says Hardison, grinning.</p>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p>"Okay," Parker says, and claps her hands together and nods, decisive. "Yeah. I think I want some trail mix now."</p>
<p>"Trail mix?"</p>
<p>"Yeah."</p>
<p>The boys blink at her, but don't do anything else.</p>
<p>"You know. M&amp;Ms, pretzels, peanuts. Trail mix."</p>
<p>Hardison's face does the same thing it did on the train after they blew up the guillotine: it lights up, gentle and illuminating at the same time, like a naphtha lamp. Eliot goes pinker at the cheeks, and she thinks at the ears too, but his hair is down, so she can't quite see.</p>
<p>"There's --" Eliot clears his throat, but when he speaks again, his voice is still rough. Not hard-rough or sharp-rough, though; it's more like sharkskin, smooth if you go with the grain, and soothing to the touch. Or to the ears, in this case. "There's more than just M&amp;Ms and … and pretzels and peanuts in trail mix, Parker. There's supposed to be raisins in there too. Cashews."</p>
<p>What? He's not making sense. "You're not cashews, Eliot, Hardison doesn't like cashews."</p>
<p>"I -- oh," says Hardison, and then, softer, "<em>oh</em>."</p>
<p>"And you might say you like cashews, Eliot, but you eat peanuts way more. It's like favorite colors. You <em> say </em> it's red, but you wear blue just as often. <em> More </em> often."</p>
<p>"She's right," says Sarah.</p>
<p>"Okay, but -- but the point still stands. There's raisins in trail mix."</p>
<p>"I don't like raisins in trail mix. Hardison?"</p>
<p>"Yeah, man," says Hardison, his voice still soft, but a grin creeping onto his face. "I never really liked raisins all that much."</p>
<p>"And <em> you </em> don't like raisins in trail mix either."</p>
<p>"But it’s supposed to -- to, to balance out the textures, alright --"</p>
<p>"Okay, but do you <em> like </em> them?"</p>
<p>"I --"</p>
<p>"Shut up, Eliot," says Sarah, and he does. But the look on his face is still flustered somehow, unsteady.</p>
<p>"I …" Lucille's voice is breathless. She looks up at Hardison and he looks down at her, and she looks over at the rest of them, her black eyes shining. "I think, you know. It makes sense. They already make pretzel M&amp;Ms and peanut M&amp;Ms, why not -- why not just put all three together."</p>
<p>"Why M&amp;Ms?" asks Eliot, who seems frickin' determined to fight this, but before Parker can open her mouth to ask why, Hardison gets there first.</p>
<p>"Dude, Parker loves chocolate. Why <em> wouldn't </em> she be M&amp;Ms?"</p>
<p>A new flush of warmth runs through Parker at those words.</p>
<p>"Wh -- Hardison --"</p>
<p>"Eliot, <em> shut up</em>."</p>
<p>"No," Eliot says, and a weird kind of trembly look comes over his face, and his hands curl into fists at his sides and tremble, too, and he looks between Parker and Hardison with -- with --</p>
<p>Frustrated, Parker looks to Sarah for some kind of clue to what the hell is going on. She's got her ears back, her fur bristling all over, but she looks more angry than afraid. But not even at Eliot, the way she's been ever since the first time they were all in London. She looks angry at herself.</p>
<p>"No," Eliot says again, and then, "I'm not -- you two got a good thing going on, I'm not gonna --"</p>
<p>"Don't you want us?" asks Charlie plainly.</p>
<p>"That's not --" Eliot breaks off to laugh, a tight pained sound, and runs a hand through his hair. "Okay, yes, it is, but it's not the <em> main </em> point. Which is that you two already got each other. You don't need me."</p>
<p>"It ain't about need, man," says Hardison. He steps forward, one hand out, and touches Eliot's arm gently. "What do you <em> want?</em>"</p>
<p>"Too much," Eliot whispers.</p>
<p>"You mean, anything." Parker folds her arms tightly across her chest. "Right? Because you're not supposed to want anything."</p>
<p>"Parker," Hardison starts, but Charlie shakes herself all over, feathers bristling, and Hardison stops talking.</p>
<p>"I get it. I've been there. I was there," Parker says. Her heart is hammering somewhere close to her throat, but Charlie is close to her neck, fluffed-out and big, and the softness of her feathers tickles against Parker's cheek and helps to ground her. "Before -- all of this. Before I met you guys. It wasn't safe to need anything, it wasn't safe to want anything, because that would mean I was weak. And I couldn't be weak, because then I'd be dead. But it's -- I'm not alone anymore. Neither are you. So it's okay to need things. And it's okay to want things."</p>
<p>She draws a breath and looks over at Hardison, who gives her a slow nod, that soft naphtha look still on his face.</p>
<p>"Even if … especially if … it's us."</p>
<p>"Parker," Eliot starts, but then he shuts his mouth so tightly that Parker can hear his jaw click shut, because Charlie --</p>
<p>Charlie, in a flutter of teal and black and white <em> impatience</em>, has burst from Parker's shoulder to land on Eliot's shoulder instead.</p>
<p>Her feathers brush his hair, and the touch is an anbaric shock.</p>
<p>Eliot goes white.</p>
<p>A burst of feeling explodes through the link. Fear, anxiety, disbelief -- and, above all, joy.</p>
<p>The same feeling Parker felt when she first told Hardison about pretzels.</p>
<p>Charlie shakes, and ducks under Eliot's hair to press herself against his neck. A moment later, a new feeling surges through the link -- affection, pure and deep and strong enough to make Parker gasp: Lucille's head is under Eliot's hand.</p>
<p>"I -- I don't --"</p>
<p>"You <em> do</em>," says Sarah, and she leaps up, and Hardison catches her in his arms. Parker immediately joins them.</p>
<p>Sarah's fur is impossibly soft under her fingers.</p>
<p>The connection between them doubles in strength. For a long moment -- which is probably only a few minutes, but feels like hours if not days -- no one says a word. No one needs to.</p>
<p>The rest of the trip goes by quickly after that. There never seems to be enough time to talk, let alone sit down and think. But they pass looks between each other quick as lightning, buzzy and anbaric and bright, and each time Parker thinks to herself: yes, this is it -- this should never, ever end.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>Maggie is holed up in Jim's flat more often than not, these days. Not that she's complaining; it gives her the chance to check in on Adèle, who's been writing her article like a woman possessed, and it gives her the chance to gang up on Jim with Tara about the merits of New Danish bacon over the sad Brytish substitute. Or about the vast superiority of coffee over tea, which is guaranteed to make Jim storm off in a huff.</p>
<p>"His cheeks go so<em> red</em>," Maggie says, and dissolves into giggles.</p>
<p>"Oh, leave the poor bastard alone," says Tara, grinning into her mug of tea. "It's hard having a crush on someone."</p>
<p>"Spoken like you have some experience. Don't tell me you caught feelings."</p>
<p>To Maggie's amazement, Tara actually flushes.</p>
<p><em> That's one for the books</em>, she thinks. This is the same woman who, last year, helped Eliot Spencer negotiate a kidnapping without even coming close to breaking a sweat. And now there's pink high in her cheeks and tipping her ears, and a dopey smile crooking up the corner of her mouth. She looks like a kid with her first crush. Maggie has only known her for a few weeks all told, but in Tara terms, that level of emotional expression is probably close to a declaration of love.</p>
<p>"Adèle … surprised me."</p>
<p>"Oh, come on," Maggie says. "Adèle can't have been the first journalist standing up to injustice that you've come across."</p>
<p>"No, no. She isn't. You're right there."</p>
<p>"So what is it, then?"</p>
<p>"Oh, come on," Tara echoes, still pink, still smiling. She looks over toward the guest room that Adèle has converted into her office, then bumps Maggie's shoulder with her own. "You've seen her. She … shines."</p>
<p>A knock at the door interrupts them. Jim shoots them a glance as he passes the kitchen to go and open it.</p>
<p>From their vantage point in the kitchen, they can't see who's at the door, only Jim's back. Maggie doesn't take her eyes off him.</p>
<p>"Agent Sterling?"</p>
<p>"How may I help you, sir?"</p>
<p>"Excuse me, sir," says the voice. Whoever it is, he sounds like he's about to keel over from exhaustion. "I heard you were inquiring about the General Oblation Board."</p>
<p>Jim pauses. Then he says, "Out of professional curiosity, yes."</p>
<p>"You weren't ..." It is the stranger's turn to pause. "You were not looking to dismantle it?"</p>
<p>"Of course not." Jim's voice is light, easy, noncommittal; he's always been good at disguising his own emotions under an infuriatingly opaque mask. But Maggie knows him well enough that she can hear the tension wound up tight behind it, the slightest uptick in the rhythm of his breath. Her stomach twists in anxious response. "Why on earth would I do that?"</p>
<p>There's a sigh. Then the stranger says, "I … it's why I came. I want to help you."</p>
<p>"Do you."</p>
<p>"I --"</p>
<p>"Paul," says a soft female voice, presumably the man's dæmon.</p>
<p>"Right. Right. Yes."</p>
<p>Another sigh, then a slowly drawn breath.</p>
<p>"My name is Dr. Paul Rendal. I am an experimental theologian. And ... I worked at the General Oblation Board's Station in the North."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Seventeen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Home stretch, mama!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Present. East Anglia.</b>
</p>
<p>What's weird is that while everything’s changed, it feels the same as always. There’s the normal flurry of activity before going in to scope out a new job and a new environment; there’s the normal routine of checking gear and doing exercises and bickering amiably between each other as they go; the only difference that Eliot can tell at a glance is that he doesn’t have the constant weight of fear and vigilance tracking Moreau’s movements anymore -- the radioactive static in the back of his mind and gnawing at his stomach is … gone.</p>
<p>He feels lighter than he has in years. Six years, to be precise. But if he’s honest with himself (really, truly honest), Moreau’s imprisonment isn’t the only tangible difference.</p>
<p>In a rare moment alone, squashed in a corner while everyone else goes abovedeck to get some fresh air and see the fens before they arrive, Sarah finally, finally talks to him again.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t cancel it out,” she says in a low voice. “Them … doing what they did. It doesn’t cancel out what <em> he </em> did.” Then, quieter, “What I let him do.”</p>
<p>“Hey. No,” says Eliot. His own voice shakes; he swallows a lump in his throat and continues. “Sarah, no. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have let him get so close to you.”</p>
<p>“Eliot --”</p>
<p>“Shut up.”</p>
<p>It’s enough of a reversal that it stops her in place, pupils wide, ears twitching.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t cancel it out,” he says slowly, “because there’s nothing <em> to </em> cancel out. We … we’re okay. And no one is ever gonna touch you the way he did ever again.”</p>
<p>He holds his hand out to her. It shakes, finely, but he doesn’t care. He just looks at her green eyes, and her trembling whiskers, and her twitching ears. His chest aches; Sarah is the best part of him, and he’s spent six years not reaching for her when he should have, not caring for her when he should have. Is this too little, too late?</p>
<p>She pushes her head into his hand, and all his doubts are gone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>It isn’t just an experimental theologian who’s come from the Gobblers’ Station to testify to their crimes there in the North. It’s one Sister Clara, an assistant to Mrs. Coulter herself.</p>
<p>The first moment Sister Clara steps in the house, every other dæmon shivers practically out of their skin. Agent Sterling’s Wilhelmina has her fur standing on end; Maggie’s Tom curls tight enough around her wrist to leave marks; and while Martin doesn’t bristle up with feathers, he <em> does </em> puncture new holes in the shoulder of Tara’s leather jacket.</p>
<p>Émile shivers in place, and Adèle covers him carefully with her hand.</p>
<p>“Adèle,” he whispers, thin and afraid. “Adèle, something is <em> wrong</em>.”</p>
<p>“We’ll find out what, then.” He flattens his wings, and she gently strokes one finger down his thorax. The touch calms them both. She turns back to Sister Clara and Dr. Rendal, the latter of whom looks increasingly ashamed at everyone’s reactions.</p>
<p>“... I’ll make some tea,” Maggie says into the horrible silence. “Earl grey okay?”</p>
<p>Sister Clara blinks. “That would be lovely. Thank you.”</p>
<p>“Of course,” says Maggie. She tries to smile, then ducks into the kitchen. Tara escorts their guests to the sitting room.</p>
<p>The doctor is not dressed like most of the experimental theologians Adèle has met -- but then, none of them were ever on the run because they wanted to expose the Magisterium for its heinous crimes, she reminds herself. This man in his faded sweater and sensible shoes and drawstring bag hanging off one shoulder that he keeps his lizard dæmon in -- well, he could be anyone. And that’s for his own good, because Adèle is now acutely familiar with the fate of those who cross Marisa Coulter and get caught.</p>
<p>Teatime passes, and between the biscuits and sandwiches and crumpets, and the little bichon frisé dæmon sitting so quietly and eerily well-behaved at his human’s feet, the truth comes out.</p>
<p>Agent Sterling arranges housing for them. While he alternates speaking on the telephone with speaking to the doctor and nurse, and scribbling notes in his own notebook, Adèle retreats to her erstwhile office to get a chance to breathe. Maggie follows her.</p>
<p>“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.” Maggie’s hands twist together around the new mug of tea she’s holding. “I’m the one who dragged you into this mess in the first place, and you’ve been arrested once already. When your article comes out …”</p>
<p>“You asked a question, and I wanted to find the answer,” Adèle says. Émile flutters his wings to brush gently against her cheek; it gives her the strength to smile. “I chose it, Maggie. I could have walked away, gone back to the Lifestyle column.” She smiles again, a little more honestly this time. “But -- I always wanted to write something important. And this is it. This is why I became a journalist.”</p>
<p>Maggie passes her the mug. “Just don’t work yourself into the ground, okay? We need you in one piece.”</p>
<p>“I’m less worried about myself than the article.” Adèle frowns, fidgets with the mug handle. “Getting the sources is one thing, writing it is another. But all that comes to nothing if it never gets out. My newspaper -- or, the newspaper I worked at before I disappeared -- they’d never publish something like that. They’re too afraid of the Magisterium.”</p>
<p>At that, Maggie smiles. “I think I know just the people who would be able to help.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. East Anglia.</b>
</p>
<p>They don’t see any of the children, but they don’t need to.</p>
<p>Parker figures it’s probably for the best. Nate’s been cold this whole time, getting colder the closer they got, and here at the fens meeting with John Faa and Farder Coram and Benjamin de Ruyter (in a wheelchair, but looking less ashen than the last time she saw him) Nate practically turned into stone. Having heard what actually has been happening to the children at the Gobblers’ station in the North, that turned Parker’s stomach. Plain and simple. She doesn’t scare easy, because she’s seen too much, but this is just …</p>
<p>It’s <em> kids</em>. That’s why.</p>
<p>“Nate’s gonna rain hellfire on ’em,” Charlie murmurs in Parker’s ear. “Remember? It’s what Nate’s always done. You hurt kids, Nate writes you an express ticket to Hell.”</p>
<p>“Right. Hell,” says Parker. She tucks her hands in her pockets and bounces on her feet, looking around. Nate and Sophie are in a corner of the tavern; from the look of her shoulders and the slight puff of Luke’s feathers, Sophie is doing damage control. Unsurprising. Hardison is on the other side of the tavern, sitting at a table near the bar, with a bottle of orange soda and his research notebook out, scribbling furiously. Eliot --</p>
<p>Eliot is crossing the room toward Parker, two glasses in hand. He holds one out to her.</p>
<p>They don’t talk, for a while. They just stand there and drink together. But when they’re close to finishing their glasses -- he’s kept pace with her, despite the ability to more than drink her under the table -- he does speak.</p>
<p>“Last time we were here, you said you settled at age twelve.”</p>
<p>Here England, not here fens, because they’ve never been to the fens before. She nods. “Yup.”</p>
<p>“I heard on the comms, during the Boost job,” he says carefully, “you got arrested when you were twelve. Did six months in juvie.”</p>
<p>“Yup,” she says again, popping the P this time.</p>
<p>“That …” He trails off, but keeps looking in the same direction, not turning further away, not looking her right in the eye. He doesn’t want to scare her off, she realizes; he’s being careful. “That musta sucked.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” She takes a teeny sip from her glass, not wanting to finish it just yet. “When’d you settle?”</p>
<p>“I’d just turned sixteen. My pop, he …”</p>
<p>This time when Eliot trails off, he doesn’t pick up the sentence again in the same minute. Charlie twitches, wanting to go to him, but Parker presses her down in place with her other hand.</p>
<p>“He didn’t want to believe Mom was sick,” he says at last.</p>
<p>“Eliot,” says Parker, and he finally looks at her. She grips his wrist and squeezes, then lets go. “That sucks.”</p>
<p>“It was twenty years ago, Parker.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, same, and it still sucks.”</p>
<p>He makes a weird sound. “Jesus. Really? You were twelve when I was sixteen?” He downs the rest of his drink, then scrubs his free hand over his face. “Between you and Hardison …”</p>
<p>“Hey, Hardison is twenty-four <em> now</em>.”</p>
<p>“Oh <em> God</em>, Parker --”</p>
<p>“You’re the one who went there first,” she informs him. He groans again, louder. She grins, punches him lightly on the shoulder, and bounces over to where Hardison has joined Nate and Sophie for the beginning of the debrief. After a moment, Eliot follows.</p>
<p>“... operate in the shadows, okay, that’s how they do what they do and that’s how they’ve been able to get away with doing it for so long,” Nate is in the middle of saying. “They know if people knew the, the full ramifications, then the public would be outraged, they -- they’d never be able to keep it quiet. Of course that requires that it be dragged into the light first. And had a spotlight shined on it so brightly that it can’t be ignored.”</p>
<p>“Wouldn’t foreign media be able to publish an exposé on it?” says Hardison. “I mean, Maggie’s friend in London, she’s a journalist, right, she just needs to get her article to New Denmark or something --”</p>
<p>“No, no, that isn’t good enough,” Nate interrupts. “Can’t be foreign, not to start, because no one in England will believe it as anything other than political scheming; they’ll dismiss it out of hand. No, it has to be, uh, it has to be local. Has to be landloper,” he clarifies, “because Gyptians get ignored bad enough as it is. No. No, it has to come from the most milquetoast, everyday Johnny Redcoat newspaper we can think of. We need <em> everybody </em> to read it.”</p>
<p>“How are we gonna do that?” asks Sophie. “I mean, government is one thing, but the Magisterium has its hands in everything. The Consistorial Court has eyes everywhere. Tara told me what happened to Adèle already, and she was just looking for information then. What happens to someone who tries to publish what we’ve found?”</p>
<p>“Well, we’ve already got a man on the inside,” Nate says.</p>
<p>“Wha -- Sterling? <em> Again?</em>” demands Eliot. “He -- he’s College of Bishops, dude, he doesn’t have the access we need.”</p>
<p>“No, but it's a foothold, and we’ve worked with less.”</p>
<p>“This is gonna be even more forgery work than the dang diary, huh,” Hardison says glumly.</p>
<p>“And in less time.” Nate claps his hands together, and looks over at the rest of them.</p>
<p>“See,” Charlie whispers in Parker’s ear. “Hellfire.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” says Nate. “Let’s steal the Magisterium.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>The crème de la crème of this whole thing is that they have to hole up at Sterling’s house.</p>
<p>Freaking Sterling. Alec only has room for one big-ish cat in his life, and Sterling’s clouded leopard dæmon is <em> not </em> it.</p>
<p>It’s the same problem people must have with Asriel Belacqua, he reflects, disgusted. By all accounts, both men have the same absolute bastard energy. Having a leopard dæmon must factor into it. Nobody ever handed these guys their asses, told them to straighten up and fly right in a way they woulda listened.</p>
<p>One of these days. One of these days, someone will. He’s gotta have faith.</p>
<p>Adèle Starminster, the journalist, has one of the spare rooms as her personal office. Alec commandeers the living room to work his forgery magic in. He might not be able to kick Sterling’s ass like Eliot can, but he can definitely annoy him, and that is what Alec is gonna do. Starting with spreading out aaall over Sterling’s fancy-ass mahogany coffee table.</p>
<p>The one good thing about the Magisterium being a big sprawling heap of theocratic nonsense is that it’s got about as many layers as an onion in terms of bureaucracy. Which means, lots and lots of paperwork for people to get lost in, and for the team to hide in.</p>
<p>Doesn’t mean he’s not gonna complain under his breath about all the work he’s gotta do. That is his God-given right.</p>
<p>Parker comes in through the window just as Sterling paces in from the kitchen. Gratifyingly, Sterling jumps.</p>
<p>“Would you -- this is my <em> house</em>,” Sterling says, aggravated.</p>
<p>“Yeah, and your windows are easy access,” says Parker, unconcerned.</p>
<p>Alec could kiss her.</p>
<p>She flips over and hands Alec a thick sheaf of papers. He rifles through it.</p>
<p>“Oh, <em> sweet</em>,” he says. “Girl, this is just what I needed. You’re the best.”</p>
<p>“What? You don’t need anything else?” asks Sterling.</p>
<p>They both look at him. His dæmon blinks once, slowly, and Charlie gives a disparaging whistle in response.</p>
<p>“Nah, man,” Alec says in his best <em> duh, meathead </em> voice, the one that annoys Eliot so much. “I just needed the formatting. The material is like, the most standard boring by-the-book ‘anti-forgery’ --” he uses air quotes, noting with satisfaction the tight way Sterling folds his arms “-- in the damn <em> world</em>, man. I could do it in my <em> sleep</em>.”</p>
<p>“I see,” says Sterling.</p>
<p>“It just takes a lot of time to forge all that stuff,” Parker adds helpfully.</p>
<p>“Why not just steal it?”</p>
<p>Alec squeaks. He doesn’t mean to, it just kind of happens -- and Lucille squeaks too, just as indignant. “Are you questioning me? Are -- are you <em>questioning</em> <em>me?</em> No, no, please, tell me how to do my job. Tell me how a stolen publishing license, and-and-and contract, and legal papers, and authorizations, and editor’s notes, and telegrams back and forth, tell me how <em>stolen</em> versions of all that are gonna help cover an article the likes of which has <em>literally never been published before</em> because of theocratic red tape whatchamacallits. Go on, I’m waiting.”</p>
<p>“Wait, are we bagging on Sterling?” says Eliot’s voice from across the hall. He comes thumping out into the hallway and thumping into the living room, and Alec’s heart does another joyful little cartwheel. “C’mon, guys, you gotta tell me when we’re bagging on Sterling as a group, this hasta be a group activity.”</p>
<p>“Group bonding?” Alec coos.</p>
<p>Eliot goes eeeever so slightly pink before his customary “Dammit, Hardison.”</p>
<p>Alec counts that as a win.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. North of Svalbard.</b>
</p>
<p>Iorek watches the light flare into the sky, a lance of purest white.</p>
<p>This means that Lyra was unable to save her friend, he knows. He takes a moment to mourn the boy. Roger was a bright child who loved as fiercely as any bear, and the world will be poorer without him in it, regardless of whatever this new light may bring.</p>
<p>There are many strong tides moving the world. He has met a few of them, and in a few moments, he will meet another. But the strongest of them all, he thinks -- he hopes -- he knows -- is Lyra Silvertongue.</p>
<p>“Go well, Lyra,” he says into the cold, anbaric Northern air, and the Aurora glows in silent reply.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>What Nate wants to do is rain blood and hellfire on these people. And he will. He will. He just has to do it the way he always does it, because it is not personal, so he cannot get caught up. He cannot get emotional. If he gets emotional, he makes mistakes. There can be no mistakes.</p>
<p>With Aoife by his ear, they spin out the web together, they orchestrate it like Scheherazade. They are the conductor, and everyone -- everyone, Magisterium included -- <em> will </em> play to his sheet music.</p>
<p><em> One</em>. Sophie is the newspaper link, the glamorous lady getting an interview, an in to every fawning journalist at the most ubiquitous paper in the country. She flatters egos, teases curiosity, keeps them coming and stops them short. She is bright and iridescent and everywhere, a perfect starling.</p>
<p><em> Two</em>. Eliot is reconnaissance, assessing the buildings and their contents for safety hazards. He is tightrope net and watchtower, disguised as the cleaning crew, Sarah’s lynx features muddied and sanded down to a plausibly harmless maine coon cat -- the dumbed-down muscle, what everyone assumes when they see Eliot. But you know what they say about making assumptions …</p>
<p><em> Three</em>. Parker and Hardison, the eyes and hands, invisible, everywhere. Hardison creates a new identity for Adèle Starminster, a new life, and he creates the nom de plume for her article who will go down in history just as surely as Upton Sinclair did for <em> The Jungle</em>. Parker delivers the article to the top of the queue, fingers nimble in the printing press, and makes sure that fresh copies are slipped into mail rooms all across London.</p>
<p>DS al Coda: go back to a previously designated point, then play through to the end.</p>
<p>Distribution, distribution, distribution. That’s the name of the game. It’s not enough just to have this in print, no, print can be burned; no, it has to be audible. People need to be telling this story in the streets, and he needs to control the narrative. San Lorenzo writ large.</p>
<p>Sophie’s cover, the glamorous lady in the papers. She heard of this story and is outraged, simply outraged. She has a daughter the age of those who were taken, those who were rent apart body from soul in the name of morality. How could the Magisterium approve of this? How could anyone who had even <em> heard </em> of it just <em> let this happen? </em></p>
<p>Eliot spots the Magisterium men as they come, and takes them out, one by one by one. He covers Sophie at the newspaper, he covers Parker at the post offices, he covers --</p>
<p>Hardison, sending out telegram after telegram, and splicing pre-recorded audio feeds into every radio station in the country. All across England, this story is breaking live.</p>
<p>And the best part -- the very best part, the cream of the cream -- is that when the Magisterium goes looking for someone to blame, they will only find themselves. Hardison’s immaculate forgeries and Parker’s ghostly presence everywhere, Eliot’s breadcrumb trail of Magisterium goons unconscious and neatly zip-tied left in the places where they tried to stop the team, and Sophie’s unignorable horror as a native of London and a member of upper crust society -- to say nothing of the article itself, incisive and damning and <em> true </em> -- all of it falls together to point to the undeniable fact that the General Oblation Board of London not only operated under the Consistorial Court’s protection, but the Cardinal’s direct approval, <em> and </em> that too many people looked away when they should have stopped it.</p>
<p>Nate himself has another role in all this. Nate’s role is to distract the Magisterium officials, to take the heat off Sterling and to make sure they don’t notice the story breaking until it’s too late to stop.</p>
<p>Easy enough. All he has to do is be himself, Nate Ford, almost-priest of the Magisterium who caused scandal all over by insisting that Calvin’s original teachings did allow for amicable divorce, and burned so many bridges on the way out that he can still see the fires burning.</p>
<p>It’s weird, now, to play himself when he’s played so many other roles. But all he has to do, really, is tap into that part of himself he played for Ian Blackpoole during the First and Second David jobs -- only this time he has Sterling on his side, instead of playing antagonist, even if it’s now Sterling who has to work on the sidelines.</p>
<p>Funny how it all shakes out in the end.</p>
<p>They can’t gloat, this time. It would be too dangerous for everyone involved to have them line up in a row to smile at the marks as they watch the world crumble around them. So Nate contents himself with a single line to Fra Pavel as he walks away.</p>
<p>You see, he knows from experience how much the Magisterium values morality over the life of a child.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Eighteen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>End of Act One!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Four Days Ago. Amsterdam.</b>
</p>
<p>Of all the places they’ve been on this wacky wild-ass adventure they’ve been on in the last four-odd months, Alec probably likes this one the best. The food is good -- Eliot badgered them all into getting frîtes with mayonnaise, and Hardison was pleasantly surprised -- to say nothing of the stroopwafels. Eliot insisted this stuff is mostly Belgian and not Dutch, despite it being so prevalent here, but potato tomato, right, it’s all part of the Dutch Empire. Frankly, though, Alec really doesn’t care where it came from. He is too busy stuffing himself full of stroopwafels. Very thin toasty waffles? Yes, please. Very thin toasty waffles with a layer of caramel in ‘em? Oh <em> hell </em> yes.</p>
<p>“Mm. Who knew Holland was the best place to be New Danish?”</p>
<p>“I still think that’s London,” says Parker, though she looks like she’s about to fall into a sugar coma. They’re boarding an airship headed North -- freaking finally, Alec has had enough of boats to last a lifetime -- and this is the layover. Everyone is taking that time to de-stress, thank God. And thank God also that Eliot’s version of de-stressifying involves food.</p>
<p>“Nah, that’s Paris,” says Eliot.</p>
<p>“What? Why? Don’t they all act all snooty when you can’t speak their language?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, they gossip about all kinds of stuff right in front of you when they think you can’t understand ’em.” Eliot takes a long sip of chocolatl, then smirks. “It’s a stupid-easy way of getting intel.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Parker tips her head to one side, considering. Then she steals one of Eliot’s frîtes.</p>
<p>“Hey, hey! Charlie’s a magpie, not a seagull!”</p>
<p>Charlie squawks, but Parker grins. “Worth it,” she says through a mouthful of frîte.</p>
<p>“Aw, hell,” Eliot grumbles. “This is gonna be a thing now, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>“I’m a <em> thief</em>.”</p>
<p>“See, I see you complaining about it, but I don’t see you actually moving your plate so she can’t steal any more.” Alec pokes Eliot in the shoulder, and he grumbles and swats at Alec’s hand, but doesn’t move away. Alec grins. “I knew it.”</p>
<p>“You ain’t gonna try huggin’ me again, are you, Iceman?”</p>
<p>“I dunno, baby. Should I?”</p>
<p>“<em>Baby?</em>”</p>
<p>“Oh, so you’re gonna object to me calling you baby, but not to the hug. I see how it is. I see how it is.”</p>
<p>“Dammit, Hardison,” Eliot starts, and then, “Parker!” as Parker steals yet another handful of frîtes.</p>
<p>They fall into bickering, delightful in its familiarity, comfortable like an old hoodie, the three of them chattering away. And beneath the table, Charlie and Lucille and Sarah twine around each other in a warm soft pile of fur and feathers -- bodies and souls in sync.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>One Day Ago. North of Svalbard.</b>
</p>
<p>The one good thing about this entire fiasco is that it takes pressure off the utter collapse of the Oblation Board.</p>
<p>-- Ah, no. There are two good things about this fiasco. The other is that because she was the only one who went up the mountain, she is the only one who knows her secret.</p>
<p>A valuable thing indeed, especially when it comes to the Cardinal, who, despite being given multiple accounts and even photograms of the Anomaly, still insists on denying its implications.</p>
<p>Hugh, dear, blessed, holier-than-everyone Hugh. Hugh is practical. He is potentially the single most devout person Marisa has ever met, and if <em> he </em> can acknowledge that the Barnard-Stokes theory is no longer theory but fact …</p>
<p>Well.</p>
<p>A plan begins to assemble itself within Marisa’s brain, falling together gently like snow.</p>
<p>Each of them plays their part. Cardinal Sturrock is stubborn but less than canny; Father Garret is obsequious as ever; Fra Pavel interjects with delicate precision to smooth the conversation over. And there is Marisa’s opening.</p>
<p>Hugh is razor-sharp and suspicious. Of course he is. The last of the plan assembles itself as Sturrock downs his wine, and Marisa makes her offer to interrogate the witch.</p>
<p>Cardinal Sturrock offers his ring to kiss, and Marisa knows she has him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Present. London.</b>
</p>
<p>Jim goes home as soon as he hears the news.</p>
<p>There’s still work to be done at the office, but he honestly could not care less. He’s spent less than a year at Interpol, but given that he has taken maybe three days off out of an entire ten months, he thinks he’s earned the right to call in early today. Especially given the news.</p>
<p>The whole of the Magisterium is supposed to be in mourning now, anyway.</p>
<p>Jim goes home, and Maggie greets him at the door. Well -- that’s the polite way of saying it. What really happens is that Jim goes to put his key in the lock and Maggie opens the door in the same moment, so he stumbles forward a bit and she catches his elbows and their heads bonk together, just a little, graceless, and her fingers curl tight in his sleeves and his key digs sharply into the palm of his hand and he can almost, not quite, almost feel the movement of Tom’s scales across the fabric of Maggie's sleeve as he loops his way up to her shoulder.</p>
<p>Jim catches the floral scent in her hair and has to take a moment to just close his eyes and collect himself.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry. Jim, I’m sorry,” she says, and uncurls her fingers from his sleeves and draws back, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, stepping aside so he can come through the door. “I should -- let you inside.”</p>
<p>“You were waiting for me,” he says, instead of anything interesting or pertinent.</p>
<p>“Of course I was waiting.” She tracks him with her eyes, and when he doesn’t say anything else, she exhales and folds her arms across her chest. “I heard what happened over the radio. Jim -- James,” she says, quieter. “I care about you. Of course I waited.”</p>
<p>“You are better than I deserve,” he says at last.</p>
<p>“Well, duh,” she says. She smiles, finally, and despite the awfulness, something small loosens in Jim’s chest. “I don’t think it’s about deserving, though. Isn’t that supposed to be the whole point?”</p>
<p>“I think that’s heresy, actually, Maggie.”</p>
<p>“Well, good thing Interpol is under the College of Bishops and not the Consistorial Court, then.” She pauses. “And anyway, if the stuff in the actual Bible counts as heresy, I think something might be wrong.”</p>
<p>“Now I know where Nate gets it from.”</p>
<p>“Oh, don't bring Nate into this.”</p>
<p>He laughs quietly. “That’s your limit, hm?”</p>
<p>“It is. The two of you in the same room, it’s a feedback loop. No thank you.” Maggie smiles again, a little crooked, but this time the smile fades immediately.</p>
<p>“What is it?”</p>
<p>“You got two telegrams. One from Amsterdam, and the other one from Dubai.”</p>
<p><em> Olivia</em>.</p>
<p>Jim’s mind immediately begins to turn. Cardinal Sturrock’s death means an election, which means a power vacuum, which means any number of things. Owain MacPhail might not be a priest of the Consistorial Court himself, but he’s well-connected enough to get caught in the crossfire. Which means Olivia --</p>
<p>The telegrams are in his hands before he can blink, though; Maggie closes his hands over the flimsies. He takes another moment to breathe, and opens them both -- and has to laugh.</p>
<p>Speak of the devil. The other telegram is from Nate.</p>
<p>Problem, solution.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Two Days Ago. Lake Enara.</b>
</p>
<p>Lee’s seen a lot of things in a lot of places, but seeing a boat bobbing across Lake Enara, which he’s heard is covered in all sorts of spells to prevent the witches’ islands from being found, is definitely a strange one. Not that he has any place to talk; he’s finding it himself, if by balloon. Getting to the summit of the mountain island and seeing his old friend Eliot Spencer in a gaggle of folk conversing with witches like they were born to it, though? Yeah, that is even stranger.</p>
<p>Eliot spots him more or less at the same time. He turns to the two people closest to him, a tall black man and a blonde woman about the same height as him, and he gives them a few words before he comes practically bounding up, Sarah at his heels; Lee and Hester come running to meet them.</p>
<p>The men catch each other by the shoulders, then embrace, thumping each other on the back with almost painful enthusiasm. The dæmons bowl over each other, catching close together, and immediately set to grooming each other with a fierce fraternal affection.</p>
<p>“John Faa told me what you did for the Gyptians,” Eliot says. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>Lee laughs. “Thank <em> you</em> for steering ’em toward me. I woulda missed the adventure of a lifetime.”</p>
<p>“You did good,” Eliot insists, quieter. “We wanted to help, but we had other stuff that needed doing. You helping them get those kids away, that was a real good thing you did.”</p>
<p>Lee catches the odd tone in his voice. Hester, bless her, does too; she cocks her head and looks at Sarah, careful, and Sarah shakes herself slightly and ducks close to continue grooming Hester’s ears.</p>
<p>Alright. Alright, then.</p>
<p>“Well, whatever it was you had to do, I'm glad it’s you who did it. There’s not a man I trust more to have my back.”</p>
<p>“Convenient how you said <em> man </em> just there and not <em> person</em>.”</p>
<p>“You never could learn how to take a compliment, could you?”</p>
<p>“Hey, you never say hi to <em> me </em> like that,” says a high female voice in a New Danish accent. Lee looks around for the source, and finds a sleek river otter dæmon, her black eyes shining pretty in the sunlight.</p>
<p>“We ain’t known you for eleven years, Lucille,” says Sarah.</p>
<p>The dæmons look up, and so does Lee, just in time for Lucille’s human, the tall black man, to come jogging up.</p>
<p>“Hey, hey man,” the guy says. “Sorry ’bout that.” He holds out his hand to shake, and Lee does. The man’s grip is strong and warm. “I’m Alec Hardison, this is Lucille, we’re Eliot’s --”</p>
<p>He breaks off to look at Eliot, who goes ever so slightly pink, and also doesn't provide a word to finish the end of the sentence.</p>
<p>Now that, Lee has <em> never </em> seen.</p>
<p>“Well, us and Parker and Charlie,” Alec Hardison amends. He turns. “Parker! Wanna come say hi?”</p>
<p>The blonde woman comes up next. Her dæmon is a gorgeous Eurasian magpie, sitting on her shoulder.</p>
<p>“Hi,” she says. She sticks out her hand as well, and her grip is just as strong. “I’m Parker. You’re Lee Scoresby, right? You’re an aeronaut.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I am.”</p>
<p>“Cool. I’m a thief.”</p>
<p>For a moment Lee is strongly reminded of the lady he met in Amsterdam, even though being blonde and having bird dæmons is about the only physical resemblance between them. He blinks, and then smiles. “Well, so am I, when the occasion calls for it.”</p>
<p>Parker beams. “I like him. Can we keep him, Eliot?”</p>
<p>“Par -- no, Parker, we can’t <em> keep </em> him.”</p>
<p>“You gotta ask the man himself, mama,” says Hardison.</p>
<p>She turns back to Lee, but he holds up a hand and smiles again, ruefully this time. “Sorry, ma’am. I’m sure your crew is a good one and I’d love to work with you one day, but for right now I’m on my own errand, for Lyra Silvertongue.”</p>
<p>A new voice says, “Silvertongue. Not Belacqua?”</p>
<p>It’s the other man in Eliot’s party, strolling over slowly with his hands in his pockets, his dæmon unseen but definitely present judging by the sharpness in his blue eyes. Beside him is the last member of the party, a striking woman with dark hair and a starling dæmon peeking out of the hood of her luxurious fur coat.</p>
<p>“It’s a better name than the one she started out with,” Lee answers. “Someone who actually cares about her gave it to her.” He holds out his hand. “Lee Scoresby, aeronaut.”</p>
<p>“Nate Ford, thief.” Ford’s grip is cool, uncallused for the most part, unyielding. His dæmon creeps out from between the folds of his scarf: a spider, grey and slim and delicate, almost lost among the blue crocheted yarn.</p>
<p>“More thieves,” Lee notes. “And you, ma’am?”</p>
<p>“Sophie Devereaux,” she says in a Brytish accent smoother than oiled glass. “Grifter.”</p>
<p>Lee laughs. “Well, y’all are more sophisticated than I am, that’s for sure. I just do a little pickpocketing now and then.”</p>
<p>“That’s how we all get started,” Parker says, nodding.</p>
<p>Hardison makes a seesaw motion with one hand. “Eh, not all of us. Some of us get started messing around with the anbarics to cause a schoolwide blackout so we can get outta taking a test.”</p>
<p>Lee laughs. Hester comes up to Lucille, and they touch noses; a flash of kinship runs through them, quick and strong. Instinctively Lee knows, like he did when he first met Eliot and Shelly and Vance, that here is a friend for life.</p>
<p>A brief cold wind, a tingle of anbaric static, and the scent of pine announce the arrival of a witch -- and then several witches.</p>
<p>“Lee Scoresby,” says Serafina Pekkala. “And Nathan Ford. Be welcome among the Lake Enara clan.</p>
<p>“Sisters, the child we have expected has vanished. I have invited Mr. Scoresby and his friends here to share their thoughts. Speak, Lee.”</p>
<p>“Since -- losing Lyra, I’ve concerned myself with a man named Stanislaus Grumman. Has anyone heard of him?” He looks around. “No?”</p>
<p>Hardison opens his mouth and closes it again, looking pensive.</p>
<p>“Grumman?” says one of the witches. She looks younger than most of the others, to Lee’s eye, especially in the slant of her shoulders and the particular glint in her gaze. “Stanislaus Grumman spurned me. I have sworn to kill that man if I ever see him again.”</p>
<p>Well, that’s … something.</p>
<p>“Hm,” says Lee. “Then, with all due respect, ma’am, I hope you don’t see him again before I do.”</p>
<p>“Lee!” hisses Hester. But the young witch either didn’t hear him or doesn’t care; she only melts back into the circle of witches after a reproving look from Serafina Pekkala.</p>
<p>“Various rumors surround Grumman,” Lee continues carefully, “but people say he knows the whereabouts of some kind of object that gives magical protection. Knowing Lyra and the trouble she’s in, I thought I might find this item for her and take it to her. Get her that protection.”</p>
<p>“Thank you, Lee,” Serafina says softly. “This protection will be of use to her, wherever she is.”</p>
<p>“You think so?”</p>
<p>Serafina steps close to him, and brings her hands up to her chest and then out in a strange motion. When she unfolds her hands, a spray of cloud-pine rests in her palm.</p>
<p>“Take this with you.”</p>
<p>He does, and she wraps both her hands around his.</p>
<p>“And whenever you need my help, hold it in your hand and call to me. I shall hear you, wherever you are.”</p>
<p>“Thank you, ma’am.”</p>
<p>“Lord Asriel has opened the way from this world to another,” she says, turning away again. “And the child of the prophecy is on her path. Lee can help her. We must decide our part to play.”</p>
<p>Thunder cracks in the roiling clouds overhead, and another witch appears.</p>
<p>“Queen Skadi,” says Serafina.</p>
<p>“Queen Serafina Pekkala,” says the new witch queen. Her gaze rakes across Lee and the other humans. “These people do not belong here.”</p>
<p>“They are here at my reckoning, as are you.”</p>
<p>“Ruta Skadi is angry,” says Kaisa, and, “Everyone should be angry,” says the other witch’s dæmon -- and wow, yes, they really are out of their depth here, even if he doesn’t quite appreciate Hester saying so out loud.</p>
<p>Lee catches Ford’s eyes flashing as Ruta Skadi speaks. He glances down at Hester, who nods at him briefly and then directs her full attention to Ford’s crew. Lee, meanwhile, keeps silent.</p>
<p>Eliot’s brow furrows, but it’s his only tell. The rest of the crew, they can’t quite get a read on yet; <em> the one problem with grifters and thieves</em>, Lee hears Hester think.</p>
<p>At the corner of their eye, Ford crosses over to speak to Ruta Skadi before she leaves. Hester’s sharp ears catch the conversation.</p>
<p>“-- against the Magisterium,” Ford is saying. “You’re not alone in this fight.”</p>
<p>“What do you know of the Magisterium’s injustices?”</p>
<p>“I know they sacrificed children,” Ford says, coldly and calmly.</p>
<p>“Your children?”</p>
<p>“Any child at all would be enough for me to want to burn them down to ash.”</p>
<p>She regards him for a moment, her dark eyes sharp on him, and his blue eyes just as sharp on her. It occurs to Lee that this is probably the reason Eliot has stuck with this crew for so long: that kind of willpower must be truly something when you’re the one in its crosshairs.</p>
<p>“I go to free Katja,” says Ruta Skadi. “When this is done, I will be glad to fight the Magisterium alongside you, Nathan Ford.”</p>
<p>They clasp hands. Then Ruta Skadi turns to bid Serafina goodbye, and Ford returns to the rest of his team. Lee picks his way over to them, close to Eliot.</p>
<p>“... like whack-a-mole,” Hardison complains. “We fix one problem, another one pops up just as fast. Only bigger and worse.”</p>
<p>“Well, this is, this is what we <em> do</em>, Hardison.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, but not taking down governments! A politician here or there, okay, sure, but the whole dang Magisterium? We -- we barely did San Lorenzo, and that was just fixing an election!”</p>
<p>“One tiny island in the Mediterranean is hardly comparable to a political and religious body that spans the entirety of Europe,” says Devereaux.</p>
<p>“Nate,” says Eliot, in his gruff <em> shit just got serious so pay attention </em> voice, “you’ve got to admit we’re a little out of our depth here.”</p>
<p>“You said that last time, and it still turned out okay.”</p>
<p>“Moreau nearly <em> killed </em> you. And Hardison!”</p>
<p>“ ‘Nearly’ being the operative word.”</p>
<p>Eliot groans.</p>
<p>“Mr. Scoresby,” says Ford, turning to Lee. “You fought the Magisterium up close. Do you have any, uh, any pointers?”</p>
<p>Lee scratches his cheek, squints at Hester for a moment. Her ears twitch. “Well, I’m an aeronaut, sir, not a commander. I go where I’m paid to go and that’s the end of it, generally speaking. I know battle tactics and I know flying and that’s it.”</p>
<p>“Well, it is war now,” Ford mutters. He lifts his eyes and gazes around at his crew one by one. “And the Magisterium started it. So we are going to finish it.”</p>
<p><em> What, just the five of you? </em> Lee thinks uneasily, but Ford is already speaking again.</p>
<p>“The Magisterium, their biggest strength is muscle and intimidation. The Consistorial Court has eyes everywhere, they do, but, uh, we got something better. We've got more friends than they think. The Gyptians, of course. The witches. Our friends back home. And --”</p>
<p>He pauses, and then smiles, flat and sharp like the business end of a bayonet.</p>
<p>“And we’ve got a problem with authority.”</p>
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